A chapter closes
It’s only week six of the year and already it’s feeling like it might be yet another of ‘those’ years. One in which we hurtle through one demanding thing after another. One where, getting a chance to pause and reflect is rare. But that’s what I have been doing. I’ve been busy with family things and good reasons to reflect on the past decade with my brothers and sister. It’s been good, enjoyable to do together. As of two weeks ago the house we grew up in has gone, it is no longer owned by the family.
This is momentous for us. It wasn’t just a house, it was a hubub of business and generations of memories. The house was our grandfather’s property, a man I never knew. It has seen many births and some deaths, including our father. He lived there as a child and died there, in his study seven years ago. Our mother has just moved to a new house after living there for fifty years. The house held great significance in the family for reasons I’ll write about another time; for now, it’s enough to know that a large chapter closes in our family history.
When Michel and I moved to France full-time, we did it with the intention of living a quiet life. We both wanted, and needed this change. I was coming out of the most difficult period in my life. My family had been caught in a bitter vortex of self-destruction, involving money, business disputes, and long simmering rivalries. Paradoxically, this same period brought the most profound, lasting, and positive change in my life. It was the time in which I adopted my first dog, and this alone changed everything for the better, forever.
However, I lost a part of my family. The two events were not causal. But adopting Susie-Belle undoubtedly got me through that rough and nasty period with a wider sense of purpose. I came out with a brighter view on what I could do with the rest of my life than if she had not come into it in its bleakest stage. During the crazy moments of the family fight, the dogs brought me another way of looking at the world. Not just Susie-Belle, but Renae and Twinkle too. Whatever problems I had, seemed insignificant when I thought about them. They brought light and distraction to my days and purpose to my life when it was most needed.
Without realising it then, I know they helped me see what was important every day. I discovered a side to myself I didn’t know was there. Over a decade on from adopting Susie-Belle, I am as committed as ever to the cause she led me to. As my family self-destructed, dog adoption changed how I thought about many things. My family was probably always going to do what it did at some point, but it was never a certainty that I would adopt a dog. I feel lucky I did it, when I did. I have a great amount to be thankful for in my life. Adopting dogs is certainly high on the list.
I don’t particularly like the clichéd phrase ‘who rescued who?’ and I will try to write smarter in the book I am working on. But, at a time when I needed help getting through human-driven dramas and destruction, my dogs gave me that, and encouragement, in abundance. And they continue to, day by day, as we go through this shared life together.
