Our Best Friend, Charlie

*(I know this blog has, for the most part, centered on our adoption. However, this post Is about our family. If you’re interested in adoption-only posts, then feel free to skip this one. No hard feelings. --A.B.)

 

                Before I had a wife, a kid, and a mortgage, I had a ball of fur for a roommate who we called Charlie. And when I say “ball of fur,” it’s not only said with affection, but it’s also quite literal. As a puppy, this dog was almost perfectly round, like some little furry, worm-infested orb of pure cuteness. Sure, he seemed a lot less cute after he cried for 2 or 3 nights, but it didn’t change the fact that he was, quite possibly, the cutest puppy in the history of puppyhood.

                The circumstances that led to Charlie joining me were different than how most normal people get a dog. I had made the innocent statement to my (at the time) girlfriend of how someday I’d like to have a dog and I’d name him Charlie (Charlie Brown, get it? Clever, I know.). Based on that single conversation, I started getting emails sent to me at work almost every day with pictures of shelter dogs, all of which asked the same question, “Could this be Charlie?” (She something similar with pictures of engagement rings. I guess she’s 2 for 2.)

Finally, there was a dog at the shelter in Madison, Indiana that I thought, maybe, could be Charlie. We went and found a litter of 4 puppies sitting in a pen outside, 3 of whom were excited and happy to see us and one that hid in the one shady corner of their pen. We looked at the 3 happy ones, but the loner in the corner intrigued me a little. I mean, I have to respect a dog smart enough to get in the shade on a 90 degree day. I picked him up, held him up to my face and said, “Are you Charlie?” When he answered by licking my face, our friendship began.

 

                Tomorrow morning, as I write this, after a painful fight with lymphoma, we’ll take my friend Charlie to the vet for the final time. As much as I want my buddy to stay with me forever, this illness has become more than he can bear. Charlie is a huge part of our family, and to watch him struggle with this has been one of the most difficult things we’ve ever had to deal with.

                One of the most painful aspects of this process has been the fact that our son won’t get to know Charlie. In our minds, Charlie was going to be the perfect big brother for Will. You couldn’t pick a better dog for a little boy than Charlie if you could design one yourself. Some of Charlie’s favorite things in the world to do were to play ball, run around in the yard, and swim. What kid wouldn’t love a dog like that? And Charlie was great with little kids. Whether it was with family members or people he’d never met, Charlie was always able to play without ever getting too rough. Maybe we were just blinded by the image of Charlie being Will’s best friend when he got older, but we never really saw this coming.

                Part of the reason was because this dog was indestructible. I mean, I saw him once run on a dead sprint after a ball, get to the end of his rope and get pulled by his neck up into the air, did a full flip and land on his feet as if nothing happened. Most animals (or people) would break their necks doing that, Charlie just kept playing ball. This is a dog that as puppy tore down a Cincinnati Reds flag on the wall (sorry Reds, still love you), then proceeded to eat the push pins that had been holding it in. And this was when he was still the tiny little ball of fur! This dog is the sweetest/toughest animal on the planet.

                I’m not the smartest person in the world by a long shot, but I believe God gave us Charlie for a reason. We saw tons of dogs, but I think He set this one aside just for us because we needed this dog far more than he needed us. He taught me how to care, everyday, for something that depended on me for its very existence. Having him with me taught me to be a better husband, a better father, and a better person. And because that’s what I believe, I think that maybe Charlie has finished what God sent him to do for us and that’s why he’s leaving us now.

                It’s hard for me to imagine getting up in the morning without Charlie. I’ll miss him every day, but the memories of him will never make me sad. Whether it’s remembering how he hid behind the couch when I tried to put him in his room and made me late for work, how he used to freak out when I’d try to put a hat on him, playing hide and seek with him, or a million other memories, they’ll always make me smile. I don’t think I was ever good enough to deserve this amazing dog that God blessed us with. His time with us isn’t going to last as long as we’d wanted, but we know that we were fortunate to have him at all. Remembering Charlie will never make me sad, it just makes me sad that my son won’t.

 

Finally! A Blog Post!

     There was this idea of a blog post that was supposed to be done last Monday or Tuesday, but now it's a full week later and we're finally getting around to posting. What happened? Well, have you every driven 7 hours round trip only to get home and immediately be attacked by the stomach flu? If you haven't, then just let me assure you that it puts a bit of a wrinkle in your plans. Regardless, we haven't updated this blog in 2 months now, for some reasons that we hope will become a little more clear, and we needed to let all of you know what's been happening.

     First of all, when we last left you, we were matched with a birth mom and waiting on her delivery date. We're happy to tell you now that on January 9th, we finally met our little boy. We got the call that afternoon that she was in labor and immediately got our things together and got ready to leave. He was about 10 days early, so we weren't totally ready yet, but we were able to get out the door pretty quickly. Despite driving through a bit of a snowstorm and having to navigate the 12 inches that was still on the ground in central Illinois, we were able to get to the hospital about 45 minutes after he was born. We spent most of the evening in the room with him and our birth mom before heading back to spend our last childless night at our hotel. After getting some sleep and debating on how early is too early to show up to the hospital, we went back to see our little man the next morning. He wasn't released until that evening, so we were able to spend a good portion of the day with him. After some paperwork he was released to us to take to the temporary home that we would grow to hate, the Danville, IL Sleep Inn.

     Now don't get me wrong, the hotel was nice and the employees there were great. If you were going to spend some time in that town, you could do a lot worse than the Sleep Inn. The problem was that we wanted so badly to be home and, due to paperwork that was pending with the state of Illinois, we weren't allowed to bring the baby across state lines. What made it worse was that this particular hotel was within about 200 yards from the Indiana border. We could eat breakfast downstairs and look across a field into Indiana, we just couldn't go to Indiana.

    We stayed in Danville for a few days before moving to another hotel, this time further south in Illinois. (We were allowed to drive a few hours to southern Illinois, but not allowed to go 200 yards to Indiana. Go figure.) We thought that going further south would make it easier if any of our family wanted to make the trip over and see Will. That was our idea anyway, but I'm pretty sure that his grandmothers would have tunneled in from China if that had to so they could get to see their baby. (By the way, that's happened also. He's "their baby". Not ours. Weird.)

    We ended up staying in our second hotel for a little over a week before finally getting the word from our attorney that we were cleared to go home. We got the call around 8 or so on a Monday night. It was a little late to start that drive, and we'd already paid for that night in the hotel, but we pulled off the quickest packing job in history and headed out the door. No disrespect to Illinois, but we're Hoosiers and it was time to go home.

     We crossed into Indiana probably around 10:30 that night (at which point I started singing "Back Home Again in Indiana"...badly), and finally got Will home for the first time a little after midnight. The dogs were interested, although not super excited yet, to meet their new little brother, but introductions had to wait until morning. We were all ready to sleep in our own beds.

    The weeks since have been filled with doctor's appointments, 2 baby showers, and grandparents/aunts/cousins who all "just happened to be in the neighborhood" stopping by and it's all been great. We've had more visitors at our house in the last 5 weeks than in the previous 2 years we lived there and it's been awesome. And our church family has loved him more than we could even have imagined (somehow he's become "their baby" too. I don't get it.) It probably has something to do with us having the cutest baby in the history of babies.

     We're not done with the adoption yet though. The coming weeks and months are going to bring a lot of hoops to jump through, but we're excited to get through them and to the point where he will officially be a part of our family, even though he already is. Just this week we the first of our 3 post-placement visits from our case worker and we were able to meet with our birth mom again (who's been great) when she signed the last of her paperwork. There will be a few more meetings with our case worker and lots of legal paperwork to be done, but we're marching full speed ahead toward our finalization.

     We're also looking forward to having another fundraiser on April 12. We reserved the date for this fundraiser before we were matched with a birth mom with the idea that there was no way we'd have a baby by then. Oops. Regardless, this fundraiser will go towards finishing up our adoption expenses as many of our fees aren't due until finalization. It will be a pasta dinner and silent auction and will be held at Syria Christian Church in Orleans. We'll have more details coming in our next blog and on our facebook page, so keep checking things out there. We're looking forward to celebrating this night as the completion of our adoption journey and hope that you can join us.

     Again, sorry for the long wait between posts, but we wanted to wait until we were home and things settled down a bit to update you all on what's been happening. We're so thankful to so many of you who have read this and encouraged us along the way. Please keep reading and we'll keep posting. We can't wait to see you all on April 12.