Naming the New Man in my Life

It’s been less than two weeks since I lost my beagle mix, Dexter. I knew I wanted to rescue another for my little family, but I really didn’t think it would happen this quick.

I posted on my personal Facebook page I would like to adopt a dachshund. Later that day, a friend of mine sent me a link to a rescue.

Besides the fact that he is so stickin’ cute, the rescue was calling him Dexter.

I knew it was a sign from my Dale and Dexter this is my new little man.

I learned this dachshund mix came from a hoarding situation with 20 other dogs. I filled out an application and was approved just hours later.

My travel buddy, Jeanie, and I will head to Clinton, Arkansas and meet the rescue lady to pick him up next weekend (weather permitting).

“Don’t you want to call him Dexter Jr?” Jeanie asked.

I knew he wasn’t bonded to the name the rescue just gave him. “No. He needs his own identity.”

I then began thinking about my life since Dale passed over 3 years ago.

I was 15 he last time I was an “I.” A skinny sophomore in high school who had dreams of being a music journalist for Rolling Stone. Before that, I often climbed atop a neighbor’s woodpile and wrote in longhand on a yellow legal pad. I pretended I was in a writer’s cabin in the woods.

That dream began in a former little township named Turner, which is now a part of Kansas City, Kansas. When I grew up, it was still a proud little blue-collar community of families rooted there. They were mostly railroad workers, auto workers, meat packers, firefighters, and police officers.

This is where I started forming my dreams when I was last an “I.” Dale also grew up in Turner and together, we bought our first home there and created our life together. The dreams we had as individuals became ours.

When Dale and I moved to Our Little House in 2007 and I eventually wrote “Living Large in my Little House: Thriving in 480-Square Feet With Six Dogs, a Husband and One Remote,” another of those dreams were realized.

One of the challenges of widowhood is remembering who I was before my marriage, remembering my dreams, honoring the ones we accomplished together, recognizing what I still want and making those dreams mine again. It’s also about building new dreams for myself.

I know many widows and widowers sell their homes because their lives have changed, the memories or the work is just too much. We each honor what we need from our next chapter.

Few things are the same for me, they just cannot be. My first instincts were to go someplace else; it was very hard for me to see it as my dream without Dale. Yes, I have my writer’s cabin in the woods, but we built upon that dream and lived the “lake life,” being on the water and enjoying time on The Party Deck grilling each weekend.

As they say, “you can’t go home again.” I no longer find the joy in some things we shared here together. Never again will fishing be the same for me, so I sold our boat. I bought a small grill I could handle last summer but only used it once. Cooking, while I still like to eat, doesn’t bring me the same satisfaction as it did when there was someone else complimenting me on it. I’m more apt to throw together a salad these days then spend time cooking.

So, I’m doing a few different things to help bring a different joy and purpose to my life, such as offering retreats for writers and widows in The Belle Creative Studio.

There is one thing still the same. I still have, and will always, have fur babies. I’ve had dogs all my life. Like this place, it was my dream before it became ours to have dogs.

Just like me, this little dog is going through a fresh start. For both of us, it is scary and intimidating. As the world still does for me, it will feel foreign to him as he navigates new surroundings, customs and meets new family.

But like I have in turning Our Little House into My Little House, with time and lots of love, this little guy will become familiar.

It will become home. If dogs have dreams, hopefully even more than he could have ever dreamed.

Just as it has for me.

No, I can’t go home again; neither to the Turner we grew up in or to what this Little House meant to me before Dale died. Both places have changed, and I’ve changed.

I can appreciate, however, where I was then and how it helped shape me. Turner was the place I learned my values, the place I first dreamed of this place. So, I decided to name the little guy, “Turner.”

Turner will be an energizing new member of the family with Abbi and Chloe, the only dogs remaining from life with Dale. Just like my heart, Turner the pup is a lovely combination of my dreams, the wonderful life and love I shared with Dale, the scars loss has left, and hope for my future.

I have no doubt it will be a beautiful addition for all of us here at Campbell Town.

What do you think of my new ittle guy? Show us photos of your babies!