I was laying in bed with all the dogs and I was looking at Murphy as he crept up from my waist to my chest with the most loving look on his face. I pulled him up and kissed his furry face.
The overwhelming urge to call my mother and say, “I am a dog person now. I get you on a whole ‘nutha level”  damn near made my heart explode.
My mom has always been a dog lover. I liked dogs growing up, we had many dogs.  My mom, on the other hand  would get super emotional when they would get sick.  She wouldn’t want to be gone too long “because the dogs would get lonely”. When they died, she was inconsolable.
This wasn’t the dog person I was and I never understood how she could treat them like they were my siblings. This is something I understand as an adult with her very own dogs now.  Murphy and Duke are my dogs. I became a dog person one random day when I had Duke at my office and he looked up at me and I cried because I loved him so much.  This spurred on the need for another dog.  If one dog could bring me this much joy, two would make my whole life complete.  OHHH, I was so right.  Murphy is my world and I understand my mother on a level I wish she could understand.
She can’t though. She has Alzheimers and any conversation is met with a blank stare or an obligatory “thank you”.   It makes me cry to think she was here not that long ago and I could talk to her about whatever I was experiencing and she had advise or would commiserate with me.  Was she the best person to take problems too? Not really, she would compare her experiences and sometimes make it about her…a flaw that I found in myself and am working so hard to eradicate.   She was my mom though and there was no one else I wanted to share with.  The sound of her voice is something I didn’t think would crave.   My sister called me the other day and she asked my mom a question and there was no response and I wanted more than anything to hear her yell down the hall, her beautiful laughter or just a quiet conversation.   That’s not ever going to happen again and it breaks my heart.  I miss my mom and I mourn the loss of her, even though she’s still alive.