Sadie

I have loved many people in my life. No love has been as unique as the relationship I have had with my dog Sadie. I would say "our dog" but really she is my dog. She was rescued from a crack house in New Orleans shortly before the hurricane. She lived there with her sister Polly, a sweet dog with a homemade crop job on her tail. I'm sure the dogs must have sighed in relief after being removed from squalor only to tremble in fear during the hurricane. 

Sadie is a survivor. She was airlifted out of the City by a rescue group and sent to a rescue in the Bay Area. Sadie quickly became my emotional support animal within days of moving in. At first we joked about naming her matches or Brillo which are tools used to smoke crack. She was scared of her own shadow. She also came with a case of mange that was so bad, she had to be treated with medicine designed for cattle. 

Sadie was there through many study sessions as I plugged my way through college and graduate school. She laid at my feet when I lost my first pregnancy. She licked my babies as if they were her own. She never questioned why I used drugs because she never knew that person. She knows me as a person who loves her. She is curled up to me night now. 

I got a tattoo of her face long before the children. She will always remind me of the love we can give when we are given a second chance at life- hers and mine. 

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 9, 2013 at 12:46 AM

    I love that story.Everyone deserves a second chance,but not everyone gets one..I am really happy to hear of that happy second chance story.I was raised in New Orleans and I know a lot about the hardships that came with Katrina,(even with the animals) so to read your story makes me smile..Thanks for the bright spot in my day:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 9, 2013 at 5:36 PM

    Thanks! Animals are the best.

    ReplyDelete
  3. MichelleJune 10, 2013 at 6:23 AM

    Where did you get the tattoo? I don't recognize it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black Tar Heroin 10 questions answered

Image
I want to get this in one place. Here you go When was the film made? The film was made from Dec 1995 to Dec 1997. Originally the film was supposed to be for one year but I believe when HBO picked up the film they wanted two years. How were you picked for the film? Steven met a bunch of different people at the youth needle exchange. He wanted subjects that were slightly younger than me. He filmed a few other people  that never made it into the final film Were you paid for the film? No. I was not paid for the film. he bought me a hotel to stay in for a week and bought me lunch a few times. I think they left some money for me when I was in jail too. Documentary film makers, in general, don't pay their subjects. Was I friends with the other people from the film ? Sort of. I never knew Alice. I met Oreo when he was 15 or 16. He was VERY young when the film was made. His mom used to work the desk in one of the hotels I lived in. Jake and I used to hang out. At one point h...
Read more

Ben (revised)

Image
Ben was heroin addled fantasy from a time when I would rather be with someone that barely loved me than be alone. I had just been released from jail after six long months. I had been using in the jail up until the last 45 days. This is did not give me much time to construct any type of recovery. I had spent most my time of planning for things that would never happen. My first week in jail was spent recovering from surgery. When I was arrested, I had four large abcesses. An abcess is a place where bacteria gets under the skin and the flesh starts to rot. I had to have surgery on my arm. When I took of the bandage, I cried. Not because I was in the hospital, not because I was in jail. I cried because they had sliced open my tattoo! The horror of it all. I used to take a sterile needle and cut them open myself. Needless to say, my nickname was the abcess queen. When I was back on the streets, I felt hopeless. I gave up my homeless encampment living for a hotel with some financial ...
Read more

Jamie

   Being able to fall apart is a luxury many people don’t have. They carry their burdens until it breaks them.  Miss Jamie was one of the most aesthetically pleasing  women I had ever seen in my life. She simply glowed. When she entered a room, everyone had to stop to pay attention. She took that space over. Her smile was radiant. Her energy was infectious. She was a fireball of a human. Her petite frame was always draped with carefully selected skirts, dresses, and form fitting sweaters. She paired this with her signature plum lipstick and acrylics.  She always came late in the day, usually when I had the lowest energy. Yet, I never refused her entrance. I was happy to see her. Happy to listen to her while she held court in my desk area.      On this day, Jamie was wheeled into the clinic by a person I had never seen before. Instead of scrubs, he looked as if he had woken up on the streets. He looked left like a caretaker, more like a pe...
Read more