For Mission, with Love

From my journal, Thanksgiving day

I sit here staring.. 

It's lonely here on this porch of the empty domestic violence shelter at the edge of this small town.

I said good bye to you yesterday in the parking lot  You were screaming and whining as I put you in that car, knowing I would never see you again. I cried hard myself, and the stink of you dirty fur from the animal shelter where I had left you was hard to get off my hands when I got back here to wash them.

I know you and I have been through much in the last two years. You have been such a great dog.

Yet I know that I am leaving these mountains you love so much.

The kind lady who has agreed to find you a new home has promised me you will find a good, loving home with many acres of woods to run in. She says that even maybe there will be children to play with. I know you love children and love when they pet your long silky ears.

I'm trying hard not to cry here as I sit alone, smoking a cig and staring out from this mountaintop view. Down below I hear the howls of a dog that sounds just like you and keep wanting to come down and find you once again.

But I know I won't and cannot...

Today is so hard to deal with.

Thanksgiving Day is when you are supposed to give thanks. Am I supposed to give thanks that my brother I loved so much died one year ago today??

I could be eating the traditional dinner. A church donated all the food and it was here sitting in the refridgerator. Yet I told the young woman running this shelter that I was not interested in a dinner for ten when there is nobody here but me. She gave it away yesterday to a woman who needed it and I'm glad...

So I'm sitting here staring dear dog, wishing you the best life has to offer, and somehow hoping you will understand.

I did all I could do for you, bringing you back from such near death. You were starving and showed signs of torture when I got you. I'm so glad I never found out who it was that took a blade to your eyes and body, burned those round scabs on your head, beat and scarred you, then dumped you to die alone back in those cold mountains of Georgia.

I'm glad that hunter found you and brought you home with him. I'm glad I found you on petfinders.com and brought you home with me.

And I'm glad I see the true meaning of thanks.

Thank you Mission.

Even now I cry.

For I finally see.

And I will always love and remember you dear dog.

May you have the best life forever.

always