Golden Angels: Lessons in Love and Loss from Buddy Girl and Daisy May
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About this ebook
Bringing comfort to anyone who has lost a pet or human loved one, it fully acknowledges the process of grieving and encourages them to begin again when the time is right.
Perfect for pet lovers or someone grieving the loss of a loved one
Essays include Mindfulness, Joy, Release, and Play
Recipes include juicer pulp doggie biscuits, peanut butter kiss cookies, and Daisy cupcakes
Stephanie Weaver
Stephanie Weaver, M.P.H. is an author, blogger, and certified wellness and health coach. She has a Master of Public Health in Nutrition Education from the University of Illinois. Her recipes have been featured in Cosmopolitan, Bon Appétit, Cooking Light, Parade, and more. She lives in San Diego.
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Golden Angels - Stephanie Weaver
0988861909
Preface
Grieving is exhausting. I began writing this book as a tribute to our beloved Golden retriever Buddy Girl, who we lost to cancer on January 2, 2012. Since then we have lost three human family members, so the process of grieving has been part of my life all year.
Everyone grieves differently. In my case, I immediately started writing about Buddy Girl, using my creativity as a way to process my grief and hold on to her memory. A few of the essays became blog posts, and then this book began to take shape. I hope these thirteen essays—and the healthy recipes that accompany them—help you savor your loved ones and those you have lost, whether they had four legs or two.
My husband Bob and I have been blessed to have two incredible dogs in our family. Buddy Girl was our first dog: graceful, beautiful, spirited. We found our little Daisy on Mother’s Day 2012. While she can’t replace Buddy Girl, she has brought new joy, challenges, and healing to our lives.
On January 2, 2012, Bob and I woke up late and neither of us wanted to get up. Buddy Girl was sleeping with her head shoved under the bed, our Headless Puppy. I knew it was the last time I would wake up with her there. It was hard for me to breathe.
Bob said, This is Buddy’s day. It’s a celebration of her. We have to focus on the joy.
We lit a candle and I laid out the pack of angel cards face down on the table. Angel cards come in a small fabric bag covered in hearts. Each card has a single word on it like Love, Acceptance, or Balance with a sweet watercolor illustration. They can be used for fun, for guidance, for meditation. Some people pick one every day, others once a week. Bob and I pick them together on special occasions, especially when we are starting something new. A new year, a new phase.
We spent some time meditating setting our intention for the day. We wanted the day to be beautiful, to enjoy it, to stay present.
I picked Creativity. Hmm. Not even close to what I was expecting. Bob picked Release. Okay, that made sense. We each picked a second card. I picked Obedience. Hunh? I tried not to be annoyed, knowing that it would make sense at some point. Bob’s last card was Patience. We used the angel cards as a way to frame the day. The cards we chose became more meaningful as the weeks passed.
I’ve named each essay here after an angel card. It may sound a little sappy but Bob and I frequently called Buddy our guardian angel, and I wonder how we would have gotten through some very tough times without her.
Daisy appeared in our lives just when we needed her, keeping us company during the loss of our dear friend Pete in June and our nephew in August. It’s truly not an exaggeration to say that these special dogs have acted as angels in our lives, bringing healing and joy, keeping us grounded and present, and helping us experience the infinite power of love. This is their story, and with all stories, we must begin.
Begin
Buddy’s story started long before she was born, long before I met Bob. I had wanted a dog for the entire 15 years I lived in Chicago. But I was always in an apartment, always at work or with friends. There was never space enough or time enough to care properly for a dog.
When I moved to San Diego in 1997 to work for the San Diego Zoo, getting a dog was one of my top priorities. I had downsized from a ten-room apartment in Chicago to two small rooms on the second floor of a funky building with a slow elevator. I had a twelve-square patch of kitchenette linoleum and wall-to-wall shag carpeting. But I was determined to get my dog at last.
There it was, the posting on the Zoo bulletin board. Free puppies! I called to reserve one, made an appointment for Saturday, and went off to Petsmart, where I dropped $90 on everything I’d need for my new Buddy. I had no idea how popular that name was. I just knew I needed a Buddy. So I bought the little custom engraved nametag and counted the days until I could pick up my puppy.
On Saturday, I called for directions to the property out in Jamul. Oh, I’m sorry. All the puppies are gone.
Wha---?
But I have a crate! And Baby Dog shampoo! And a cute little leash and collar! And a friggin’ engraved nametag with my address on it!
I was totally crushed even though I realized that trying to housebreak a puppy in that tiny apartment without access to a yard would have been a disaster. I could have gotten a dog someplace else, but the reality of the limitations of that apartment had settled in and I knew I needed to wait a little longer.
Six months later I started dating Bob. Six months after that, we bought our house. It has a fenced-in yard. Commence puppy planning.
Not so fast. Bob wanted time to work on the property and enjoy being married before taking on the responsibility of a dog. He knew that it wasn’t fair to get a dog while working on the house, and our house needed a lot of work.
I had been hinting that I wanted a dog for a while when Christmas came around. Bob is an excellent stuffer of Christmas stockings, and he really outdid himself that first Christmas. Amidst all the fun little gifts, he tucked in a Golden Retriever puppy refrigerator magnet.
A year went by, we worked on the house, and I kept hinting. In my second Christmas stocking I got a little stuffed Golden Retriever. Bob says now that he wasn’t trying to taunt me; he just thought it was cute.
Our third Christmas I got Buddy Girl, and she got her own stocking.
All along, I had thought we would go to a nice shelter and pick out a dog. Since I worked at a zoo I knew all about inbreeding, puppy mills, and the importance of rescuing shelter animals. In that world, people didn’t buy purebreds, they Rescued.
After two-and-a-half years of cajoling, I didn’t even think about asking for a puppy. But now that he was ready, he was Ready, all in. In his mind, the process went like this...
Let’s do some research on breeds, and figure out what breed we think will really suit us. And of course, don’t you want a puppy so you can train it from the start?
Do I want a puppy?! Are you kidding? So on a sunny Sunday afternoon in October 2000 we went to the bookstore for an afternoon of puppy research.
Golden Retrievers weren’t