Fortunate Cookie: Week 5: Survival of the...Fittest?

Week 5: Survival of the...Fittest?

They say the show must go on, but my heart has needed an understudy ever since Monday morning, which brought the sudden and horrifying loss of my Awesome-O, my beloved two-year-old Corgi. My only child. My sole purpose. My core.   

Yet here we are, on week five of Fortune Cookie Friday, and the plans to crack open this week's message still stand. It's about the only thing that resembles my life as I knew it, before I spiraled into the most profound pain I have ever known. The outpouring of love and support from my family and friends has been staggering, but still, I find myself desperately searching for any joie de vivre, or something that resembles forward momentum, or the will to continue.   

Anyone who knows me - privately, personally, or even only casually via a Tweet or a Facebook page - knows that Awesome-O was not "just a dog," and any pet parent and animal lover knows there is no such thing. This has never been more true than with Awesome-O, who first came into our lives in early August 2008, when he was just six months old.

  I work from home, so he instantly became integrated into everything I did, from our morning breakfast routine to our evening tucking in ritual. He even sat on my bathroom floor when I took my shower, waiting for me patiently and licking the water off my feet when I was done. About the only thing he didn't do with me was go to the gym, but even with that, we had a system: as soon as he saw me grab my iPod, he knew I'd be back in 45 minutes, and took his position in the hallway, waiting for my return.  

As a married woman in my mid-30s, I get asked, either outright or simply with a certain look, whether or not I'm going to have children. When I tell them no, some - even perfect strangers - go so far as to ask why, or if something is wrong me.

There are plenty of things wrong with me, but as far as I know, none have to do with my ovaries or uterus.   Though I love my three nieces fiercely, I never had a desire to have children. Ever. It's just that simple.

Then Awesome-O came into my life, and I realized it was not as much about not wanting to be a mom: it was more about the kind of mom I was meant to be.   So I became that mom. A really, really great dog mom...just not for as long as I had hoped.   

When Awesome-O passed, in my grief, I fled, blindly, to Washington DC, where I used to live, and where I would meet my friend Lisa, who flew all the way in from Arizona for the weekend just for this reason, then head to Andi's for the weekend to grieve.

This is what you call lifelong friends.

We ordered Chinese food from City Lights in DC, and looked for a sign. Any sign. And this is what we found:  