I am Doodlebug, King of the Olde English Bulldogges.
Sweetie: What do you mean “king”? I don’t remember voting for you.
Doodlebug: No vote necessary. Facts are facts. I’m in charge of the pack which is everybody.
Me: Uh, beg to differ. Number one – I am in charge. Number two – I am not a bulldog, thus not a pack member.
Sweetie: Awww, Lady Human, you are one of us even though you are not nearly as good-looking as we are, but you can’t help that, I know.
MoonCat: Meow. Me, too. Pack member.
Doodlebug: Yes, even though you are not now and never will be a true bulldog, join in.
Sweetie: This is getting out of control. What next? Chickens? Monster lizards? Bugs?
Doodlebug: Chickens…I dunno…maybe, but I definitely draw the pack membership line at bugs. They don’t listen to instructions, and they try to take over everything.
I have dreaded writing this post for a whole month. No, I have dreaded it longer than that, maybe for years.
Stella passed away one month ago today. She went fast, quietly, in her sleep. Her legs were relaxed.
Had she been standing, they would have been in a running position, the way they always looked when she would chase a squirrel.
Later that day, I came across a cartoonish sketch I had made of her years ago in the same running pose. The caption read, “Flying Stella: I can’t feel my feet touching the ground.” And I realized that had become for her quite literally true. Fly, girl, fly. See you later.
I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. LADY HUMAN!
Me: What’s wrong?
Stella: It’s HORRIBLE! No, no, calm down, Lady Human!
Me: I’m not the one who needs calming down, girl. What’s the matter?
Stella: THAT! Shhh! Don’t let it hear you! It’s a MONSTER!!!
Me: Oh, it’s all right. That a Texas Spiny Lizard. She lives in the yard, has for quite a few months now. I call her Little Buddy. She eats bugs…
Stella: You’ve been letting a monster live here? Have you lost your mind?
Me: She may look like a dinosaur, but she won’t get any bigger than a foot long and she won’t hurt any of us. We aren’t bugs.
Stella: Speak for yourself! How do you know she won’t take one look at me and think ‘Oh, there’s a big fat bug for my supper. Let me take a chunk out of that.’ Hmmm?
Me: Well, for one thing, she’s already run off. Now, if she were 10 feet long and peaking over the fence, we might have cause for concern, but Little Buddy will never get anywhere near that big…
Stella: Lady Human, stop giving pet names to monsters! Unless that name is MONSTER!
I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. Lady Human is being quiet. Too quiet. Swat a fly! Tell us to “cut it out!” Say something!
Me: Sorry, girl. I was just thinking about someone I used to know.
Stella: A human? Do I know them?
Me: No, he went away long before you came. I learned last night that he has passed away and he was a young man. I’m pondering.
Stella: Passed away like Wiggles passed away?
Me: Yeah.
Stella: Are you sad? You feel to me as though you are.
Me: Yeah, a little. Mainly over missed opportunities. It had been so long since I saw him or spoke with him and I thought my feelings now are silly at this point and don’t really matter. But I was reading about grief last night from a book by C.S. Lewis. He said, “Whatever is matters.” It helped me.
Stella: C.S. Lewis…was he a bulldog? He sounds like one.
Stella: Lady Human! Lady Human! You have let it happen again!
Me: Calm down, girl! What have I gone and done now?
Stella: You let it get hot again.
Me: Yeah, that’s just like me. Letting summer come around.
Stella: Make it stop.
Me: It will stop in time. Along about September. Maybe. Calm down. You’re winding yourself up for no reason. You’re panting and it’s just not that hot in here.
Stella: Panting…is…important.
Me: Save your breath. Relax. It’s the best thing to beat the heat.
Stella: I’ve been relaxing my whole bulldog life and I haven’t beat it ‘til yet.
I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. Lady Human, blow on the air and make it cooler.
Me: That is not one of my gifts, girl.
Stella: Turn on the twirling thing then.
Me: It is on.
Stella: Don’t try to fool me. It is not going as fast as it can.
Me: Oh, all right. One more notch up. But don’t try to steal the covers if you chill down in the wee hours of the morning.
Stella: Wee hours? Is that why I have to get up to go outside and potty in the dark? Why didn’t you just tell me they were called that? That solves the mystery.
I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. Leave me alone, Lady Human. Uhhh…
Me: Come on, girl. You gotta go out before it starts raining.
Stella: No. Just lay here.
Me: Boy, you sure were fast asleep. You were out like Lottie’s eye.
Stella: What? Whose eye? An eye out? My eye? Both my eyes are here!
Me: No, it’s just an old expression. ‘Out like Lottie’s eye’ just means you were so deeply asleep that it was hard to wake you up.
Stella: Who is Lottie? Why is her eye out? Can she open it? What’s going on?
Me: I don’t know any Lotties and I don’t know how that saying came about.
Stella: Then why say it? Now I’m all worried about Lottie and her eye. And now I’m going to have to watch my eyes even when I’m asleep. Thank you so much, Lady Human, for fouling everything up with your weird old sayings.
I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. Lady Human is strange. She has been too quiet. I don’t like weird stuff. Or change. Or boots sitting in the middle of the floor. Or…
Me: Or a whole lot of things that don’t fit your bulldoggy view of the world.
Stella: Exactly. So what is wrong with you, Lady Human?
Me: Just been doing a lot of thinking. And remembering.
Stella: Have you been that way because Wiggles passed to the Great Creator?
Me: Yes, partly, but there is more than that. And how would you all even notice me being quiet? With all the noise you make around here…
Stella: Hey! Somebody else’s loudness is no excuse for being too quiet. Speak up more! That way we’ll have something to shout down!
I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. Here I am, trying to enjoy a peaceful meal and the cat is lying uncomfortably close to my bowl, watching every bite I take. Lady Human, make her stop!
Me: MoonCat, you might want to back off a little bit. Go eat your own food, okay.
MoonCat: Meow. What the big ole bulldog is having smells wonderful.
Stella: Lady Human.
Me: Let Stella eat in peace.
MoonCat: I can dream, can’t I?
Me: She is eating dogfood.
MoonCat: I am not particular. I will just wait until she is finished.
Me: She is finished. I am putting up the bowl.
Stella: Thank you, Lady Human. The thought of a cat’s nose in my food bowl is enough to give me nightmares.
It has taken me two full days to get up enough gumption to tackle this and write about it.
At 10:08 a.m. on Friday, March 4, 2022, Wiggles passed from this earth, exactly one week after her 8th birthday.
Wiggles loved the outdoors. She came to us when she was just over a year old. She had been a country dog. The man who owned her decided that he wanted a motorcycle and selling the dog would help him get to his goal faster. My son’s friend put them in contact with each other and my son bought Wiggles. About two weeks later, Wiggles’ previous owner was killed in a one-vehicle accident while riding his new motorcycle.
Everybody liked Wiggles, even non-bulldog people. That was not always true of other dogs. Wiggles never picked a fight, but she never backed off from one either.
She was active and quick. She loved to sunbathe on pleasant days.
Recently, she had started standing for a long time and staring, but I thought nothing of it. There is a lot to stare at outside. Then, on Friday, she suffered a huge seizure. Her whole body was trembling.
I stared into her face. Her eyes were closed. The trembling stopped. She opened her eyes, looked at me, then closed them again, and went. It was so peaceful that it took me a few minutes to realize that she was gone.
“One last look,” as my son put it.
I believe in God, the Creator of all. I also believe in the revelation of heaven and eternity as presented in the Bible. There was a time when I did not think that applied to animals. I know better now. God is not an annihilator. He used the bulldogs to teach to teach me that. (I am a slow learner.)
I also believe that the LORD restores. The next time Wiggles looks at me, we will both be fully restored and there will be no more last looks.
I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. Lady Human, why are you gagging and making yuck noises? You really do sound like a bulldog today.
Me: Ugh, I ate the wrong thing or didn’t eat the right thing. I don’t even know.
Stella: That’s because you eat strange stuff out of that cold box. Why don’t you eat the food you give us? It’s easy. It comes in a big bag and out of a big can. There’s a lot of it. We will share with you. Maybe. Once in a while.
Me: But that food is for dogs. Humans have different food needs.
Stella: So you mean that pie, and those potato chips, and that dark drink that you won’t let us even taste, and that stuff that came in the big red box shaped like a heart, and…
Me: Okay. Okay.
Stella: Hey, I understand. I have chewed on a few things in my life that made me gag, too.
Bulldoggy 