Mullen

Recently our 10 year old dog, Mullen, died. She was a black lab, husky mix with deep blue eyes. She howled instead of barked which we all got a kick out of. This summer before all of my postpartum adventures began, we had a wedding to go to. My parents took Mullen for the weekend. They kept her after that weekend. They told us that a city is no place for her to run around and she didn't look like she was going to even make it until the winter.
Labor day weekend she died in her sleep. My dad found her and was very reluctant to tell us. He felt really bad and I am sure he was concerned about how he was going to tell me. My parents probably remember really well how I took the death of my first dog, Dodger. I cried for months, yes-months-over him. I got him when I was ten and he was my big baby. He died when I was 22 and was just fresh out of college.

My dad came to our house to help with some projects around the house and to help me with the kids early September. I work part-time from home and usually the kids are great, but it is a lot easier to work when someone else is tending to them. Many times I have the baby in the bouncer on the table and I talk to him, while my daughter is coloring me a picture or making a mess out of play dough. I am sending out an e-mail or working on a mailing for my job. Somehow my work always gets done and I am thankful that I can work from my home. I have the best jobs in the world :)

So my dad told me that Mullen passed away. I immediately hugged my dad and I felt sad. The tears didn't come. Weeks went by and the tears still wouldn't come. I e-mailed my friend and told her I could not cry about this. It really bothered me. I asked her what the medication was doing to me-making me a hard ass!! She told me the medication buffers you from feeling sad and depressed. I guess that makes sense it is in the name of the medication  anti-depressant.  I talked to my therapist about this. She told me it might be because I went through something so traumatic this summer that I grew so much from that experience. Things that normally would make me cry, now I just think they are sad.

This continued to bother me. I started to not like the medication anymore. Plus I was working out 5 days a week and wasn't noticing any weight loss. I started dieting to see if that would help too. I blamed my medication on this also. I started to feel trapped. I did a little on-line research about my medication, which my husband hates when I do this! I will talk to my doctor early next week when I see her. She is the only one I should listen to about my medication.

Our friend Todd came over to visit us last week. He knew how sad we all were about losing Mullen. Natalie was especially sad. She told everyone we saw that "Mullen dieded."  Todd bought her a stuffed dog that barked when you pressed the paw. Her name was Mullen. Natalie loves her. She takes her everywhere with her and sleeps with her at night. That first night we had the new stuffed animal, Mullen, I asked Natalie if I could take her in my room for a few minutes. She let me. I sat down on the big, overstuffed chair in my bedroom. I looked at "Mullen" and started crying. I cried for about five minutes and I said a quiet goodbye to my real dog Mullen. It was exactly what we needed.

And yes ladies... Todd is still single- isn't he sweet!!