For the girl who chose us

Bellatrix LeDog, aka Bella, Boo Boo, Bella Bear, and the four-legged love of my life, passed away in the wee hours of November 11. She was not quite 14. 

Bella was 3 years old when we got “the call” from the Longmont Humane Society (LHS):

 

LHS: Hi, Vic. We have a dog …

Vic: We’re not looking for a dog.

LHS: … who has tested positive for distemper and bordetella.

Vic: …

LHS: She needs to get out of the shelter as soon as possible.

Vic: …

LHS: She’s one of our shy dogs.

Vic: When do you need me to pick her up?

 

Wags had just left us for the Rainbow Bridge a few months earlier, and then we had the Shyla foster—the sweet girl who was with us for nine Love-filled days before she died of an intestinal blockage. We were, as you might imagine, a little wary. But Vic brought her home, and she fit right in to our introverted household—as a foster dog, of course. We would routinely take her down to the clinic at the shelter for follow-up testing because when she got a clean bill of health, she could return to the adoption floor.

 

The last time we picked her up, she ran to us and jumped up with her two front feet. One of the trainers there, Max, said, “Whoa, she’s never done that with any of us.”

 

Welp, that was it. If she hadn’t warmed up to anyone else the way she warmed up to us, we were just gonna need to adopt her.

 

And she was always what she advertised: a shy dog who was always mistrustful of strangers—even long after they shouldn’t have been strangers; who would always be pretty independent (unless I was going to the bathroom, and then she needed to be right beside me); and who would never be a “real” dog who played tug of war, chased the ball or liked squeaky toys. We took her to the dog park. She literally just stood next to us the whole time. We took her to doggy swim. She literally just stood next to us the whole time.

 

And we never forced her to be anything other than herself.

 

Vic always said he got her for me. By the time Wags—his dog, 100%—died, he was 70. He wanted Bella to be my dog, so he was always kind to her, but always wanted her to love me more. And she did. So when he passed away five years ago, she mourned him for a few days, and then just came right back to me.

 

I failed her spectacularly in those first months. I didn’t walk her enough. I sometimes forgot to feed her. To the very end, I had to have an alarm on my phone to remind me to check her water. But as all good dogs do, she forgave me every time.

 

She was a healthy dog all her life. She was starting to have problems with straining her limbs when she would zoomie too hard or jump from the door of the garage to the floor—completely bypassing the three stairs to the bottom. She had two urinary tract infections this year. But every time the vet examined her, he or she would mention that she seemed younger than her age. This would not serve me well, because it meant I was completely unprepared for her death.

 

The end was sudden. She had a mass on her spleen—an aggressive form of cancer—and it ruptured.

 

She did not suffer for long—her spleen probably ruptured around 1 a.m., and by 1:30, I could tell she was in distress, so I took her to the emergency vet. They gave her oxygen, made her comfortable and did an ultrasound. They knew right away how dire her situation was. They called me back to the treatment area and explained my options: surgery, which carried a 50/50 survival rate and a brutal recovery for a senior dog, or chemotherapy, which would leave her with no quality of life for maybe six extra months. The cancer had likely spread all through her body. Because of her age and prognosis, the vet’s recommendation was euthanasia.

 

If I couldn’t have her forever, then my hope had always been that I would have enough time to call one of those services that comes to your home and puts your dog to sleep there. We did that for Wags, and it was very peaceful. That definitely would have made Bella happier. But the vet said that without the oxygen they were providing her, she wouldn’t even make it through the night.

 

As I mentioned, Vic died five years ago. I miss him every day. But I have never missed him more than I did sitting in that ER and having to make that decision by myself. Yet later in the morning, I realized that I hadn’t really been alone. Because in the end, I made the decision that I knew he would have made—I knew he wouldn’t want to prolong her suffering, and I didn’t either. So I stayed with her for about an hour, just petting her and telling her she was a good dog and that I loved her, and then I kissed her on the head and they gave her the shot. She died instantly. She was ready. I never would have been.

 

Bella never wanted to cause me any distress. She never “told” me when her leg was hurting, when it was too hot or too cold for a walk, when she was hungry because I forgot to feed her. She just waited for me to figure it out. Her last gift to me was to pass away when she knew I was going to be out of the office for a few days. I’m convinced that she heard me saying all day Tuesday, “Remember, I’m going to be out for the rest of the week.”

 

As always, I leave you with a few pictures of my darling girl, who is back with Vic and is getting to know all of our pets, along with our families’ and friends’ pets, who arrived at the Rainbow Bridge before her. That thought gives me comfort.

 

Hug your loved ones—human and furry—a little tighter today. You never know how long you’ll have with them.

Bella's first day with us

Always curious

She learned early on that Mom liked to sleep late in the morning.

Our first family portrait—we never got one that didn't look
like we were trying to strangle her.

Always a little wary

She always looked a little worried.

My sweet little girl

One year, we had an assignment at work to play around with artificial intelligence (AI). These are the result of that assignment:

This is the Day 1 picture above—as a Pixar character.
I love how AI perfectly captured her signature worried look.

Here we are as Peanuts characters from that first family photo above.
Notice how AI wanted her to be happier. 😆 

Here she's a character from The Simpsons.
Back to the worried look.

And finally we have Muppet Bella.

41 years of friendship with the inimitable Nancy Guynn

In 1985, I met a brassy, sassy, oh-so-classy Texas queen named Nancy Guynn. I had just started work at Boulder County, and she worked in the same department. We became friends almost immediately and remained so until her death on Saturday.

At first, we were “just” work friends, (figuratively) hanging out around the water cooler and making each other’s lives better in the rat race of work. We’d have lunch from time to time at Mustard’s Last Stand, but mostly we laughed a lot and got stuff done.

One year, Vic and I went to the Flagstaff House for dinner. I wanted to go, but I didn’t have the self-confidence to pull it off. I’m a Mustard’s gal, not a fancy gal. I confided in Nancy, and the next thing you know, she’s bringing me a beautiful lace shawl, a brooch that was her mother’s and a decoration to go with the baby’s breath in my hair. (It was the 80s. We wore baby’s breath in our hair for special occasions.) She said, “If you look good, no one will be able to tell that you’re scared shitless.”

A couple of years later, Vic, his son, Bryan, and I went to California. We didn’t have much money, so we all stayed in the same motel room almost every night and spent almost all day, every day together. When we got home, as we were taking a walk around the neighborhood, Vic said, “We weathered that pretty well, didn’t we? Maybe we should get married.” (This is literally how he asked me to marry him—as casually as if he were telling me he had scheduled a haircut for Tuesday.)

Nancy was one of the first people I called.

Before Vic and I had a chance to even think about anything, she said, “You’ll get married at our house.” And that was it. Three months later, we did.

Nancy and Ken's beautiful house

The wedding from the neighbor's house, showing the lush, green backyard

You may now kiss the bride ... under this lovely pergola

The happy couple

Nancy's Ken, wearing his finest tuxedo shirt. What you can't see is his khaki shorts!
Ken was the perfect partner for Nancy.

Over the years, she and her partner, Ken, hosted us for numerous dinners at their house:

This picture—in a frame Nancy gave me—sits in my entryway
where I see it every day

There may or may not have been wine at this dinner

No, there definitely was

And we often did things out and about:

At the Denver Zoo

Hiking the Mesa Trail

At the Denver Botanic Gardens

With one of the CowParade cows in Denver

She was there when we bought our first house, where she and Ken planted a tree and a garden for us

Eventually, I left Boulder County for the University of Colorado, and she left Colorado for her home state of Texas. But it didn’t take long for us to head down south to visit her and Ken in their new home town of Austin (as well as the beautiful city of San Antonio).

Nancy was a world-class gift-giver. She gave you things you never knew you always wanted, and they were always elegant and stylish. Every time I show up with this bag ...

... or wearing this pashmina ...

This is on our 30th wedding anniversary—which seems fitting,
given that we got married at her house

... someone tells me how much they love it.

The pashmina accompanied me to the first wedding I went to after Vic passed away. It was the first major event I had attended without him … and a wedding, of all things. But it felt like Nancy was with me that day as I was enveloped in her pashmina.

One of my favorite gifts she gave me was this box:

She lined the box and covered the lid with wallpaper from the house where we got married—again, her house. I put these two bears in it (a gift from my sister and brother-in-law) and put it where I would see it every day.

Nancy lived a large and full life. She did everything with passion, commitment and excellence. She was a devoted wife to Ken, an adoring dog mom, and a fierce and faithful friend. You hear people say this all the time, but with Nancy, it is 100% true: She was one of a kind. I have never met—nor do I ever expect to meet—anyone like her.

I loved her dearly, and to say I am devastated by her death is an understatement. She meant the world to me.

As always in one of my blog posts, I leave you with more pictures. I wish that they could give you more than a glimpse of how special and wonderful she was.

Nancy LOVED her dogs—this is her dear Airedale Terrier Jack

Our last visit to Mustard's, me wearing yet another gift from Nancy—
this stunning silk scarf

Nancy loved hanging out in the pool

Nancy knew how to have fun!

I want to tell you about my Uncle Jimmy

Philip James Schenkel—my dad's little brother—passed away yesterday. He was 81.

Uncle Jimmy was the middle child of five—with Uncle Bobby and my dad being the oldest, and Uncle Ricky and Aunt Phyllis being the youngest.

Back, L to R: Uncles Ricky, Jimmy and Bobby;
Middle: Aunt Phyllis; Front: Dad

Family was important to all of them. In fact, the first memory that comes to mind were Orange Bowl parties at Uncle Jimmy's house on New Year's Day when the Nebraska Cornhuskers played some losing team (national champions back to back to back, baby!). The brothers were watching the game. Their wives and Aunt Phyllis were in the kitchen. The kids were playing unsupervised wherever we wanted—probably running with scissors. It was the 70s, man!

Dad was the glue in the family—he was the one who organized the family reunions and made sure everyone showed up to make runzas have a good time. While I was looking for pictures of Uncle Jimmy today, I found at least four such reunions. Here's one with the next generation of Schenkels, my niece Margeaux and my nephew Nick. And there's my Uncle Jimmy, second from right, with his ever-present smile:

Eventually, we lost Uncle Bobby, but Dad, Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Ricky made the trek from Lincoln to Greeley, where my Uncle Bobby was living then, for the funeral. If you know me, then you know that the way I process grief is often through humor. Gosh, I wonder where I got that from? 🤣 I remember this evening before the service just sitting in a hotel lobby and laughing the night away:

Although I spent a lot of time with Uncle Jimmy and his family growing up, it wasn't until Vic and I started driving to Nebraska every year that I grew much closer to him. You can imagine how some family members might balk at the idea of their beloved daughter/sister/niece dating and then marrying a man 17 years her senior ... but not Uncle Jimmy. He welcomed Vic with open arms (as did all of my family ... eventually 😂) from the very start and always made him feel included and loved.

Every time we went to Nebraska, we made sure to spend time with Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Nancy.

We would often go to The sllonK for dinner (actually The Knolls, but my dad had this thing about pronouncing words backward—I still remember the first time we passed through an unincorporated town and the word "detaroprocninu" just flew off his tongue—and then everyone else just started calling it The sllonK, too), after which we would drive around Lincoln, often starting in the North Bottoms, where Dad's family settled, and then passing by the little house where Grandma Rose and Grandpa Phil lived with their children—my dad and his siblings. Dad and Uncle Jimmy would narrate, and we never heard the same story twice.

Vic would always make us get out of the car at some point so he could take a picture of us. This is my all-time favorite:

Many a trip ended at the Village Inn, where everyone would meet for breakfast before we headed back to Colorado. We almost always did some jokey pose—Vic rarely got a clean shot of us. The thing that strikes me about this picture is that my mom and my stepmom are in it. They were both close to Aunt Nancy, and Norma (my stepmom) just wasn't intimidated by Dad's ex-wife. (I know this post is supposed to be about Uncle Jimmy, but shout-out to Norma, the best stepmom of all time.)

The last time I saw Uncle Jimmy was at my beloved cousin Kimmy's funeral not quite three years ago. He wasn't doing well—both physically and emotionally. He was pretty much in constant pain, and he had just lost his daughter suddenly and without warning. But he still had the ability to summon a smile to his face, which is how I'll always think of him.

I loved getting the occasional text from him, always signed "Love ya, Uncle Jim," as if I wouldn't know who it was from. He would tell me what TV show they were watching and what was going on in it, or what the weather was like, or how he missed my dad/his brother. After Kimmy died, we talked a lot about grief.

My heart goes out to my Aunt Nancy, my cousin Chris, my Aunt Kathy (Uncle Jimmy's first wife), and all of our family and friends who loved Uncle Jimmy. I've been getting a lot of texts from my family today, and they all say the same thing: "He was a really good guy" and "He was the best." And they are all right.

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures of Uncle Jimmy and me. I couldn't have loved him more.

After a nice dinner we had in Lincoln—maybe at The sllonK?

At one of our many meals together—I'll bet this was at the Garden Cafe

At my college graduation party