MY OBITUARY?!

OK, this post might creep ya out a little bit but that is not my intention. Several incidents have happened recently that have got me thinking about my obituary. Well, sure the main one would be when MY SISTER asked if I had a "will" and instructions for what I wanted done when I died....................
OK, my first reaction wasn't happiness but when you stop and think about it, it is good to have a PLAN. It would also ease my heart to know that she just doesn't have Animal Control back up their van in my driveway and load it up.

Yep, I can see where that could be a definite possibility! I HAVE told her that in the event of an early demise, she is to put my animals in the care of my youngest niece "Lily" and my good friend Amber who is the Head Vet Technician where I work.
OK, now for the other incidents that got me thinking about it again...
This past week a couple of my Blogger friends have sadly lost their beloved pets. And while in the animal world I suppose you could say that they had lived long lives, but to us humans their time with us was too fleeting and yet long enough to leave a big hole in our hearts.

Then over the weekend I was outside watering my flowers. It was that time of night, dusk/twilight when it's no longer light out but it's not really dark yet either. I was absent-minded as I watered the patch of flowers between the sidewalk and the street. I live on a busy street but being a holiday weekend there really wasn't any traffic. Just a random car every now and then. It was so magical and still. Just the sound of the water spraying on the flowers.Then a few feet to my right I could just barely see something fluttering back and forth over the flowers, briefly touching their faces and swooshing backward again. I strained my eyes to see. Was it a dragonfly?

Or maybe a little hummingbird? I just couldn't tell.  I know that my nieces would have said it was a fairy and I was entranced. It kept fluttering back and forth and away when I would lean forward to investigate. This went on for a few moments and then as it fluttered back out again, a big SUV whizzed by. It was gone. I frantically searched the air. Nothing. Probably swept up into the grill of that car...so small that they would never realize...is it wrong to feel profound sadness over something that I was just barely sure was there?

Then there's the little dog that boarded at my kennel this weekend. Every time my owner brings her in I can feel myself holding my breath during her whole stay. She's almost 16 years old, weighs 3 lbs and 2 oz. and has lost most  of her hair. She SHOULD look like this:

She's a little black Pomeranian. that you have to carefully stand on her feet or she falls over. Once she balances herself, she'll kinda stagger and then run like a little spider.

So over the weekend the girls would call me with different questions and I'd ask how Brandy was doing. She had developed diarrhea and the Doc had put her on medication for it and she was having more trouble than usual standing. She was eating, but just barely. I was praying that she would hang on until Tuesday morning when her mother would be back in town.
So Tuesday morning I got into work early. Brandy was a mess. We bathed her and I went to call her Mom but she was just walking in our front door. I explained how she was no longer able to control going to the bathroom and how she wouldn't stand. I hate this part of my job. The woman was devastated even though she knew it could happen at any time. I was just glad that the little dog had hung on until her Mom came back. So her Mom released her to Heaven.
So you can see how these series of incidents would make my mind go back to the obituary thing.
Then I started to think...if I wrote it as I wished it to read, it could be a positive thing. A little map to help me get back on track of what's really important to me. So, I'm working on it. I want it to say that I was surrounded by love. Love of my animals and friends and family. I want it to say that I was true to myself and enjoyed my life to the fullest. I want it to say that I loved creating and that I was a  caretaker of rescued animals. That I didn't need the expensive trappings of life but took pleasure in the simplest of things.
AND then yesterday was full of JOY. The weather cooled down to 67 degrees and it was SO windy. I LOVE windy days. I was with 3 of my dogs and another little "boarding" dog at work and we were outside in the big enclosed grass covered play area. The dogs were speeding by in huge circles as they played. Blue was romping around and the day was so glorious that I wanted to take my shoes off and twirl in the green grass like a little kid with my arms searched out in the sheer joy of being alive.

But I didn't. I might have missed a "poop" and I didn't want everything to screech to a halt! LOL!
So, Life is Good. And I see no reason why I can't squeeze another 50 more years out of it. Beatrice Wood did and so did Georgia O'Keefe. So I'm going to start on the obit. and then put it away. I know that  I want it to say that I was a FOLK ARTIST. I am going to start calling myself that even though I feel scandalous doing so. But it's kinda like being in the corporate world. You have to dress the part and act the part BEFORE you can get the part (job). If you do that, then other people can visualize you in the part also.
I know there's some saying that goes something like Luck is 90% of being prepared and 10% of being in the right place at the right time.
I also want the obit to say something like "she lived her first 50 years like a Golden Retriever"

Happy, friendly, hardworking and an eagerness to please. Loyal to a fault and would always be there even when she got kicked, she come back and try again.
"And her second 50 years she was like a cat."

Loving to those who deserved it. Reserved, aloof and made people accept her on her own terms.

And if she was kicked, she would run away and wait...

until your guard was down and you were sleeping

and then she's run up and bite your feet threw the covers!

I also want my ashes scattered with my beloved pets on a cool windy day. And then I want my friends and relatives to dance barefoot in the grass celebrating my life.
And if I decide to have a gravestone to mark a place in my favorite cemetery, I want it to say "I'll be Back!

So as morbid as it sounded to me in the beginning,

I now think it's a good idea.

A way to remind myself what is really important to me

and how I really want to live my life.