It is so much more complicated than people understand.

People think, oh, she went through a hurricane. It’s over. Move on.

No, it doesn’t, unfortunately, work that way. I, like so many other people in Wilmington, have a lot of damage that has to be dealt with. Insurance companies, estimates, repairs, no money to take down the thousands of dollars of trees that would make my property safe. What to do?

And so one Monday I spent the morning on the phone with insurance companies. I got off the phone and wept, I was so scared. This is beyond my understanding. I don’t know how to do all of this, but I am trying, God help me, I have been trying.

But before I got a chance to deal with the insurance companies I ended up in the emergency room with my beloved Delilah from midnight to 3 a.m., and to a vet specialist by 8 a.m., and back and forth to the specialist for a week, and then… then… she died anyway. And I didn’t just lose a dog, or a “pet” I lost my soul mate, my beloved companion, and more than people realize, these dogs are like service animals to me. I lost the support that kept me grounded. And there was more.

When Delilah died on Thursday she left behind a mother, me, who adored her more than words can express but relied on her to be okay and somewhat approaching sane in the world, and she also left behind a brother, the little elderly pug who had bonded to her, relied on her, and for whom, more than I could realize when she was alive, helped him feel safe and okay in the world, my beloved little Pugsley. I adopted Pugsley in 2011. He had been badly abused and came so afraid he had to wear a “thunder shirt.” He was terrified a lot of the time. But he and I fell in love with one another, and he came into a household with 3 other pugs, and he slept with me, and I held him close, and he has been my darling boy ever since. In May of 2017 he was diagnosed with a collapsed trachea. The vet said I might only have him another 6 months. A year and a half later he has done so well on medication most of the time you wouldn’t even know he had an issue. But then… then we lost Delilah. I knew how it affected me. Watching how it has affected him has broken my heart.

There was this little spot, I called it Delilah’s “Blanket Fort.” She had come to me on September 1, 2013, having been rescued from the horrors of being used as a puppy mill breeder. She and I looked at one another and fell so in love I cannot find words to express the kind of bond we felt, immediately. This is Delilah the day she came to my house…

She arrived, she fell asleep on me, we fell so deeply in love nothing could or would ever come between us, until “Death do us part.” and last Thursday that is what happened. There is a hole in the center of me that no one, nothing, no other dog will ever fill. Part of me doesn’t want to go on living without her. But there is this little boy.

Delilah developed an adorable, to me, pattern. Every morning we 3 got up, I got them out to the potty, got them their breakfast, and meds, made coffee, and came in here to my desk. Pugsley settled in his cozy bed with a huge super soft blanket in it, right beside me, and Delilah went under me. I would spread one of these huge, super soft, fluffly blankets over my lap that spread out on the floor beneath me and she tucked in there between my feet. I called it “Delilah’s Blanket Fort.” Pugsley never went in there. Since Delilah died that’s where he goes, in her spot, and he lays there whimpering. It is one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever seen.

Like after the hurricane when people think that it is just now old news and don’t realize that we are months, some people years, before they will recover from the devastating hurricane, my beloved Delilah’s death was not an end, it was, in it’s own way, a beginning. Pugsley has historically, even with Delilah here, not done well at all when I left him. Of course I never left often or long but I could go have dinner with my family, and they managed okay for a few hours several times in a week, say, over Christmas week. (I only see my out of town children and their families, my grandbabies, a couple of times a year which is very hard for me and I treasure every single moment I have with them. My home is not conducive to big family gatherings so we go to my daughter Rachel’s house meaning I have to leave the dogs.) But this year there aren’t “dogs”. There is one elderly dog with a compromising health condition, and an anxiety condition that puts him at risk, with his collapsed trachea. I could go to dinner and come home to a dog who had passed from the stress. So now, just weeks before Thanksgiving, and Christmas to follow, I have a little dog that needs me and means that I cannot leave him to be with my family. I am terrified, heartbroken, afraid, beyond upset, and trying to figure out what to do.

My family and a wonderful rescue person are trying to help me find a sweet companion to join Pugsley and I, and tomorrow I will be talking to my vet about ways to help him cope (I gave him Xanax when I had to leave multiple times to take Delilah to the vet and came home to him incredibly upset as though the Xanax hadn’t done a thing.). I have talked to both of my sweet supportive daughters today who understand that my needing to be here for him supersedes even me being there for a Christmas gathering and they said they would try to alter their plans to get here more than usual but it would still mean I would miss a lot. Today I cancelled/closed my beloved Sunday Night Writing Group because I just don’t have the presence of mind to be there to teach. My whole life, post hurricane, and with losing Delilah, has been such a series of heartbreaking pileups I barely know how to survive. And I’m not surviving well.

Perhaps in these last days here on this blog I have been repetitive. If so, I apologize. But nothing matters to me now other than this. I am in sheer survival mode. I have a mess outside that needs fixing, a fence broken in several places, doors to two different sheds broken, one fenced garden area completely destroyed, trees that were downed everywhere, so much more I barely know where to begin to deal with the insurance people with all of it, and now I have lost my beloved Delilah, and Pugsley is suffering and we are both lost and you know what, if I used this sort of language I would say F-CK IT ALL!!! I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how I am going to make it through, I just don’t know.

I could use a miracle. I believe in miracles. What I am asking for is prayers. Please pray for us, Pugsley and I, that we find the right companion to join us. And please pray that I can get through the hurricane mess. And I had to cancel the work through which I got some donations that helped. Delilah’s vet bills over less than 2 weeks until the end of her life were over $1000. After the first of the year I will be opening a Patreon site to offer my work but until then things are scary and grim. So please pray for me, for us. I am afraid. I believe in the power of prayer. Send prayers. I am trying to figure out how to handle all of this and carry on. And right now I am just too tired to see my way through.