We are their angels on earth who love them and help them when it’s time to cross the Rainbow Bridge. We are all on our own little trek passing through and lucky to find helpers as we go.
My cousin Nita in Texas read about Spike’s passing last week and sent me these words of comfort and hope: we are all on our own little trek passing through and lucky to find helpers as we go.
Pretty and I thank everyone for your love and support of our family in our sorrow. Our wish for you tonight is that you have been lucky enough to find helpers for your journey when sadness, disappointments, unspeakable losses make this little trek seem impossible to endure.
We’re in this life together; thank you for reaching out to us.
On Thursday, March 27th., Pretty and I lost our beloved Texas dog Spike – not totally unexpectedly because he was old for a big dog, yet somewhat of a surprise because he had been in a slow decline for a long while before suddenly finding movement almost impossible Thursday morning. He told me and Pretty he was ready to go with his soulful big brown eyes. That afternoon an angel of mercy came to our home to help ease his passing. Our family has lost a cornerstonethat cannot be replaced.
In January, 2022, I published the “Spike Story.”
When my cousin Martin saw Spike for the first time he said, “Sheila, that ain’t nothing but a cur dog. Plain as day.”
That was in the spring of 2012, the year my two mothers died within two weeks of each other. I was a motherless child by any definition at the end of April, the month Spike appeared on Worsham Street in Texas as a motherless cur dog which according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, and my cousin Martin, meant he was a mongrel or inferior dog – surly or cowardly.
When that cur dog showed up on Worsham Street in front of our house, Pretty and I had four other dogs: Annie, Red, Chelsea and Ollie. I tried to convince my neighbors across the street to keep him, but both of them had cats as well as dogs plus jobs that required their daily presence. I was a stay at home writer. My neighbor Lisa and I tried to find his owner for several days but finally realized someone had dumped him in our neighborhood so he belonged to Worsham Street. I called Pretty to talk to her about him – she was working and living most of the time in South Carolina while I had been in Texas to take care of my mother – and since we split the four dogs into two separate households – what was one more?
At first Spike was skittish around Red, Annie and me. He preferred to stay in the yard, but one night the rains came; I saw him sitting on the back porch looking at Red and me on the bed through the sliding glass door which I got up to open for him. He came inside that rainy night – never to be an outside dog again.
Spike sound asleep with his buddy Redon our sofa in Texas
(spring, 2012)
Red was quick to besurly – Spike not somuch
Spike seemed to understand that he was the low dog in the pack. Red was the alpha male because that’s how terriers roll. Smallest in size – but Red was the recognized “star.” Annie was a big dog like Spike but much older. She allowed Red to lead as long as she approved of his leadership, but don’t ever cross her. Spike learned to avoid her, but he loved Red. Red adored Annie. Typical love triangle similar to humans. Am I right?
The math Pretty and I had originally calculated worked well when we were in different homes but changed dramatically when we were together in South Carolina. Then we knew we had five dogs. Looking back to those years I’m not sure how we managed but we loved them all.
Spike, Redand black lab Chelsea in back yard on Canterbury Road
Spike fell in love with Chelsea on his first trip to South Carolina in 2012; it was a feeling that stayed with him as long as she lived – a feeling that remained with him forever after she died in March, 2016. To this day he whined or barked when he saw a big black dog walking by on our street from his perch on the couch in our living room on Cardinal Drive.
Spike at homeon our patioat Casa de Canterburyin July, 2012
Spike and Chelsea on my grandparents’ bedin September, 2014
my grandparents would be horrified if they knew
One by one Spike’s pack succumbed to illness and old age, and he became the sole survivor in the spring of 2016. Pretty and I promised each other we would shower him with affection, treats, walks, to give him the attention he hadn’t experienced as the interloper of the original four. We tried for months to lavish him with our love – perhaps partially to assuage our own grief. What happened surprised both of us. Spike’s grieving was as real as ours, and he didn’t like being an “only” dog. He missed his pack.
Enter Charly in the summer of 2016. Charly was twice rescued: once by Pawmetto Lifeline and then by Pretty, Spike and me.
Spike and Charly in ourliving room – 2019
when you can’t be withthe one you love,honey, love the one you’re with
Now we have another little old man about the same size as Red, but Carl and Spike aren’t buddies, though – neither is Carport Kitty who definitely dislikes our three dogs. That’s okay. Charly runs interference between Spike and Carl who has learned the importance of pretending CK doesn’t exist. Spike has a pack again. Pretty and I love them all.
Spike on his walk –January 11, 2022
By the way, cur dogs are really a wonderful breed of “hard-working treeing hounds” with traits that include being devoted to their people, protective of their environment and fabulous additions to families.
So to my cousin Martin I say thank goodness Spike ain’t nothing but a cur dog. Pretty and I wouldn’t have him be anything else.
Yesterday, when I was young the taste of life was sweet like rain upon my tongue. I teased at life as if it were a foolish game the way an evening breeze would tease a candle flame. The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned, I always built to last on weak and shifting sand. I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day and only now I see how the years have run away. Yesterday, when I was young there were so many songs that waited to be sung. So many wild pleasures that lay in store for me and so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see. I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out. I never stopped to think what life was all about and every conversation that I can recall concerns itself with meand nothing else at all.Yesterday the moon was blue, and every crazy day brought something new to do. And I used my magic age as if it were a wand, I never saw the waste and emptiness beyond. The game of love I played with arrogance and pride, and every flame I lit, so quickly, quickly died The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away, and only I am left on stage to end the play.Yesterday, when I was young there were so many songs that waited to be sung. So many wild pleasures that lay in store for me, and so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see. There are so many songs in me that won’t be sung ’cause I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue. And the time has come for me to pay for yesterday when I was young
(Source: Musixmatch Songwriters: Herbert Kretzmer / Charles Aznavour)
Unlike the lyrics in this song, I do stop to think what life was all about, a personal luxury as the general life expectancy age for women in the United States is 79 years which will be my age in five weeks. I can identify with these reflections, with their universal themes of how the years run away, the wild pleasures mixed in with the dazzling pain, teasing at life, dreams that won’t ever be realized – all compressed into memory makers. Every day I am reminded that my age is a gift, unmerited favor, grace that should be celebrated.
The closer I get to a birthday, the more I care about life expectancy and the extra rabbit holes I go down with my Googling. There are more rabbit holes in a Google search than there are Jackrabbits in West Texas. The good news is if I can last just five more weeks until my 79th. birthday on April 21st., my average life expectancy is 9.5 years or I will live until I am 88.5 years old. Sigh. Apparently I need to be extra careful, though. Try not to fall, avoid fatty foods, tell Pretty how much I love her every night, and mostly be a kinder person to my family and friends.
Fun fact in one rabbit hole: short people outlive tall ones. Good grief. Finally, a benefit of my body type.
three women of song who will be remembered long after they’re gone
Trouble, we have known trouble In our struggle just to get by Many times the burden’s been heavy Still we carried on side by side And when we’re gone, long gone The only thing that will have mattered Is the love that we shared And the way that we cared When we’re gone, long gone And when we’re walking together in glory Hand in hand through eternity It’s the love that will be remembered Not wealth, not poverty And when we’re gone, long gone The only thing that will have mattered Is the love that we’ve shared And the way that we cared When we’re gone, long gone When we’re gone, long gone The only thing that will have mattered Is the love that we shared And the way that we cared When we’re gone, long gone
“For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.”
This year’s theme calls for action that can unlock equal rights, power and opportunities for all and a feminist future where no one is left behind.
—United Nations
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Like many twenty-eight-year-olds I wasn’t interested in finding a personal physician because I hadn’t been really sick after surviving the usual childhood illnesses during the 1950s and 60s. Unlike most young adults in the 1970s, I lived in a city that was a thousand miles from my roots and I needed to see a doctor. A friend at my new job recommended Dr. J. Frank Martin, Sr.; I liked him immediately, but I loved his wife who was the center of warmth for their family practice which has been my medical home for fifty years. Dr. J. Frank Martin, Jr. continued the tradition of his parents following his father’s retirement.
This past week Sarah Kay Cox Martin died in her home in Hopkins, South Carolina, at the age of 93. I will always remember her kindness, her smile, her sensitivity to a young woman from Texas who found a family practice where family was more than a word. So many memories…
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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