My mind is racing…racing…racing. It won’t stop. Never ceasing thoughts creep in. Somewhere in the darkness is peace, but it alludes me this night. Counting sheep never worked for me. (Who came up with that anyway?) And at the moment citing the Psalms over and over aren’t helping either. Sometimes when I pray, thoughts pop into my head and take me away from my prayer. I’ll be speaking with God and somehow find myself thinking about laundry, or how the kids did in school, or work! Then I realize I’m supposed to be praying and wonder how in the world I ever came to be thinking about a,b,c when I should be in prayer!
So just as the thoughts keep me from my prayer life at times, so my thoughts are once again encroaching where they’re not wanted! And why does it have to be on a night where I need to wake early tomorrow morning? Isn’t that the pits? Murphy’s Law rises to victory again! (Who was Murphy anyway?) Removing the blame from Murphy, whoever he is, night time has never been peaceful for me. It’s the pound puppy’s fault actually. I don’t speak of this memory often because it includes my mother and that is always a painful subject; one that I try to pretend doesn’t exist. But I’m pretty sure if I had to be perfectly honest, the night before the “pound puppy night” was the last night I remember sleeping without any difficulty.
My grandparents had come to take me. I was moving to Nevada. My mother’s boyfriend at the time had done some things he shouldn’t have. The police had come, he was arrested, and they couldn’t find my mother. So the authorities had two children in their custody and no mother to be found. Needless to say, that raised a few eyebrows in the Health and Welfare Department of New Mexico! It took the officers two days to find her and when we were finally sent home, my mother had bought us a new puppy. There was just one problem in this happy reunion. The Department of Health and Welfare was concerned, we needed to testify and my mother wasn’t willing to allow that. According to my mother, she was faced with having her children placed in foster care, or sending us away for a little while to stay with Grandparents.
So there I was watching the car pull up the drive way. I didn’t remember my Grandma. I had only seen her a handful of times when I was three. I had completely forgotten about her actually and didn’t know I had Grandparents in Nevada! As I watched my mom put my clothes in the trunk of the car, our little puppy wagged his tail and chewed on my shoe. I didn’t cry. I don’t know exactly what held the tears back. I think fear mostly, for I was going alone. My brother was being sent to other people in Arizona, so being the youngest of four, I was embarking upon an “only child” childhood. For the first time I would have to play alone. There would be no one to follow, no one to mock, no one to tell on, no one to play with.
On the way out of town we stopped at the store. My mom was there and she bought me a pound puppy. I had dreamed of a pound puppy of my own for months, but we were always out of money. But this day my mom bought me a pound puppy. It was white with black and brown spots. All brand new with his blue collar and gold tag he fit perfectly in my arms. In the parking lot my mother received a one arm hug because the other was holding the pound puppy. I didn’t have my brother, but I had my pound puppy!
That night, at a hotel I woke up to blinking lights. My bed was cold as it was much to big for me and the blankets were too light. I didn’t know where I was at first, and then I remembered. I was leaving. I wouldn’t see my brother anymore. All of a sudden the world seemed so huge and so terribly lonely. I searched for my pound puppy and he wasn’t there. Terror surged as my little hands frigidly cold gripped under the pillows, flapped the bed, searched under covers, finding no pound puppy! Remembering to look on the floor, a huge sigh escaped my lungs as there he was found! Laying right next to the bed on the floor. I quickly grabbed him up and hugged him tight! And standing there in the darkness, my nightgown all the way to my ankles, little toes ice cold, squeezing the stuffed animal as hard as the tiny arms would allow, I smelled my mother’s perfume. I looked up, thinking maybe she was there and I wasn’t leaving after all. But…
Nothing…
Only darkness…penetrating darkness. My throat burned and it felt like a little knot was forming where my adam’s apple should be. I climbed into the over sized bed, curled up in a ball, tightened my hold on the pound puppy, and shoved my face into the pillow as hard as I could.
The knot got harder, and my throat only burned warmer until the tears began. I cried so hard my little body shook, and try as I might I couldn’t stop the wave of emotion. My stomach lurched with each forceful sob, my little voice crying out “mommy, mommy, mommy” But there was no mommy. Only my pound puppy with black and brown spots.
Years later, twenty-one years later to be precise, here is the memory that haunts me. I always wake up cold, and I shut my eyes tighter willing “it” away. But it comes. No matter how fast I race my mind, the track always leads to the pound puppy. And I know there is some confounded life lesson in this and I can’t figure it out! I would like to say I lost my pound puppy, but I think I threw him away because I was angry. I was angry with her! I was angry at me! And in all that anger I lost my only friend at the time. The little pound puppy with black and brown spots, and I’ll never get him back….You see, we were both orphans and that’s why with him I wouldn’t feel so lonely. He was lost and he couldn’t be with his mommy either, so in my little mind it all made sense. That’s why he was given to me when he was. That’s why I didn’t get him before, because I wasn’t an orphan yet and didn’t need him then!
But I’m not an orphan now and even though I didn’t know it at the time, I wasn’t an orphan then. There is a King whose daughter I am, a celestial home where no tear will drop, a family no amount of distance can overtake. He is the Lord Jesus where all this peace is found, and with His blood all the wrong has been put right…so I lay awake and wonder…
why do I miss my pound puppy?
