Angels Here, Angels There. Angels Everywhere.

Every person I know who works in rescue, training, or other fields involving dogs has a meaningful story behind their canine-connected fate. As we approach the end of the year, I reflect strongly on my own story – the particular ways in which dogs affected me at a pivotal point in my life that led me to do what I do… and to become who I am. I would like to share that story with you now.

On the morning of June 23rd, 2004, my Mom and I lay side by side in matching hospital attire, anxiously awaiting what we simply knew was going to be the answer to our prayers. After giving us each light sedation and an epidural, the nurses wheeled us each to our respective operating rooms, one next door to the other. Then, the incredible doctors at University of Colorado Hospital removed 60% of my liver, removed my Mom's liver completely, and transplanted this actual, living, physical piece of my body into her body. Of her belly, I was given life. And of mine, she was given life...if only for six months and eight days. Although the "ending" to the story of our live donor liver transplant is not what any of us expected, nor ever imagined we could live through, that I had the opportunity to give Mom back (only a fraction of) what she gave to me is the greatest gift of my life. Knowing that she literally took a part me of me with her to the next plane gives me pause; in fact, it gives my life eternal purpose.

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During an anomalous self-destructive phase in her early twenties, my mom contracted Hepatitis C through abusing intravenous drugs and sharing needles. For my entire life growing up, she was 100% clean, sober and seemingly, completely healthy. A vibrant, beautiful redhead with a contagious lust for life and a smile that shone for miles, my mom was always moving. She volunteered for countless organizations, using her many talents and her selfless heart to bring joy to others. She acted and sang with the children’s traveling theater, where she performed plays weekly at different elementary schools around Denver. She did in-home daycare when we were growing up, creatively and interactively hosting a group of kids that were more like siblings to us than friends. During our Colorado winters, Mom would outfit all of us in snowsuits and delight in watching us fly down the big hill in the backyard on saucers. In the summers, we would ride our bikes around the park’s path while Mom roller-skated, always going the opposite way so that she could pass and say hi as we sped by each other on our respective wheels. Mom read books on tape for the Library for the Blind; she was the head of the PTA; she baked incredible homemade pies, cookies and bread; she made me laugh harder than anyone or anything else ever has. During my third-grade talent show, she danced on stage with reckless abandon to Paul Simon’s “Boy in the Bubble”. Her ability to “dance like no one was watching”, even when hundreds of people actually were, embarrassed me back then. Now, the thought brings on waves of appreciation and nostalgia so intense as to momentarily steal my breath.

In the meantime, Hepatitis C – known by those familiar with its dastardly ways as the "silent killer" – was slowly but surely turning my mom’s liver into scar tissue. By the time she showed any symptoms of cirrhosis, (at an extremely youthful age 55), the disease was in its final stages. And - in spite of our incredible joint liver transplant in June of 2004 - she died six months and eight days later, thirteen minutes before midnight on the same day her own mother had passed away: New Year’s Eve.

During the time that I was physically healing after surgery, and in the six months we spent with Mom in the ICU before she took her “final flight”, I was walking dogs and pet sitting as my primary source of income. Thank God for this, because I couldn’t last an hour without collapsing under the weight of sadness, nor did I have energy available for use in anything customer service-related. So rather than return to the coffee shop job I had prior to the surgery, I walked and ran with dogs all day, every day. In the sun, the rain, the wind and the snow, the dogs and I walked and ran and hiked. And I cried. I cried and cried until, through cleansing washes of tears it was revealed, that my mom’s absolute physical absence translated into her all-encompassing spiritual presence. It was during that time I spent with dogs – literally and figuratively moving forward - that I learned to live again after my mom had died.

A year after her death, I was invited to come live with friends on the Big Island of Hawaii. Here, I spent time with my friends and their dogs, exploring wild tropical terrain and adventuring across exquisite land and seascapes. Being with dogs at this time allowed for a wide-open, honest flow of emotion. As brutal as it was to experience the depths of anguish and sorrow that I did, it allowed me to "grieve productively". It wasn't that the dogs saved me from feeling my pain. Quite the contrary. Rather than "numb my heart", which could've been accomplished with the aid of alcohol or TV or drugs or any number of other distractions, dogs facilitated my feeling this pain "in its entirety", in a safe zone of non-judgment and unconditional love. As it turned out, this was precisely the formula necessary for my finding acceptance and living on.

My relationship with dogs in the context of grief even allowed for the connection between my Mom and me to grow deeper, which I never imagined was possible for souls as close as ours. By living fully and vividly - in the moment, where dogs always exist - I received the particular gifts that grief offers, if only we have the faith to let it happen in our hearts. For me, this included reaching a greater and more divinely inspired understanding of what it means to be alive. When my mom’s physical form perished, so too did the life I had known. It was an elemental turning point in the evolution of my spirit. And dogs were the earth angels that accompanied me as I picked my broken self up and continued on. Today, nine years later as of December 31st, 2013, dogs – and guidance from my guardian angel mom - continue to inform and inspire my every move.