Mom

Last night I was really missing my mom. She’s been gone since 1997. Her cat Laura is still with me.

My home is filled with things I love, most remind me of someone I love. In the background of this photo I see Dante, Fernando, Julie, Ron. When I stop and observe my surroundings the people – and a dog or four – of my life are there with me. Last night sitting in the chair with Laura, across the room was the rubber tree mom sent me on Mountain Pet Grooming’s opening day in our new location. July 1995.

It sits behind my reading chair in the living room.

After mom died a friend told me after 14 years there were still times she started to pick up the phone, wanting to talk to her mom. Mom’s now been gone for 14 years. Oh! To have a phone call with her! I have so many things to tell her!

Mom exposed me to dog shows, allowing me several show dogs, a Miniature Poodle and a Shetland Sheepdog. A Standard Poodle person herself, she never understood my infatuation with the Lhasa Apso. She thought they were ‘stupid’. The things I could have shared with her along my own path! After Edie earned her Rally title, my sister Lori told me mom would have been proud of me. Obedience was one of mom’s passions. She taught obedience class right up until she went into the hospital. She had to sit on a stool to do it, but she taught. Mom was still old school. How fun it would have been to share c/t with her! To see Edie sail over the jumps this morning, doing a hard serpentine sequence… mom would see Lhasas aren’t stupid.

Julie and I discovered RD (renal dysplasia) in our breeding program in 1996, so mom was aware of that. I don’t remember if she knew about the initial research project or if that happened after her death. She gave me a love of reading and always had the latest dog magazines. Back in a time when magazines were full of articles, ads full of information rather than glitz. I devoured them. To be able to show her the research paper…she would be proud of me.

How I would have loved her to be along my side as I navigated the Gompa dog path. Not that she would have understood my infatuation – as I mentioned earlier. But she would have listened and encouraged me. I would love to tell her that I achieved something huge for my breed, the opening of the AKC gene pool. And that Haba is coming May 29th.

When I was in Vet Tech school, she’d phone every Thursday morning at 7am. Sometimes I begrudged those phone calls, stumbling down the dorm hallway to answer the phone. What I wouldn’t give today for that phone to ring and hear her voice on the other end!