Puppies! - Val's Story, Chap 16

And so, Val fell down the hole again.

          It wasn’t just the death of her youngest dog; it’s never just one thing. She was frustrated with her job, feeling it was going nowhere. She wasn’t seeing eye-to-eye with her AA sponsor, so she had already started skipping meetings. Since she had been sober three months, once she got her three-month coin, she thought it was cause for celebration. Even after those three months of meetings, the only way she knew to celebrate was to open a bottle.

I don’t remember much about Val’s life after that for the next year. I had injured my back on the first of April, four weeks before Bleu died, and I had a hard time getting around for many months after that.

          I texted Val regularly and called at least once a week. She swore she had her drinking under control, that she could handle it, and that there was nothing wrong with having too much to drink on the weekends.

          One weekend in July, she booked an Airbnb with Buddy and some friends. The friends bailed on her, but she went anyway. At the last minute, she invited me to join her. I had a funeral to go to Saturday morning, but promised I’d drive the two hours to the cabin as soon as I could. She asked me to meet at a bar and grill a few miles from the rental, and I thought, “Great, here we go, my daughter will be drunk all weekend.”      

          When I got there, we decided to eat lunch on the deck outside the bar, and to my surprise, she ordered a soda with her meal. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, she can handle her drinking.

          We had a nice time together, hiking through different parks with Buddy, watching movies that night, and laughing like we used to.

          But that darn hole was still there.

~~~

She got a part-time job bartending at a different bar, this one much closer to her house. Working from home during the day was still hard on her, having no one to talk to in person.

          She’d always had roommates to help her with the bills. Even when she was married, it seemed like a friend was crashing with them, paying what rent they could. Unfortunately, many of these roommates were unsavory. Not only did they not all pay rent, but they didn’t help with chores around the house, and some of them would supply her with street drugs, as if the alcohol wasn’t enough for her.

          And the boyfriends. None were as bad as the one she kicked out of her house during our last trip to Africa. But still, this Momma worried nonstop about her choices.

          Easter morning, 2024, my phone rang earlier than expected.

          “Guess what?” Val’s voice met my ear.

          “You’re going to Easter services at church this morning?” A mom could continue to hope.

          “You’re so funny, Mom. No, I have puppies!”

          Well, I guess that’s better than announcing she had herpes.

          It was a convoluted story, which to this day, I’m not sure I got straight. But somehow, she ended up with three ten-week-old mixed-breed puppies that no one else could take. Of course, I dressed and drove right down to her house.

They were in poor health, and she was never quite sure what had happened to them, but she suspected they had gotten into some chemicals at their original owner’s house. They were so thin and weak that they needed help eating. We hand-fed the largest one, the only boy, and used a syringe to get nourishment into the two small girls.

Val committed to getting them all healthy, getting up several times a night to feed them and cleaning up their messes. Within a few days, they were all eating on their own and trotting around in the backyard.

          Val decided to keep the boy, whom she named Max. But she had to find homes for the two girls. We had put down Dino, our faithful mutt, in January the previous year, and though I hadn’t wanted another dog, I couldn’t turn away these pups.

Luckily, the person who took the smallest pup also decided he wanted the other girl. I wasn’t heartbroken; my husband and I really didn't need another dog, and months later she had grown larger than her brother Max. He turned out to be a handsome boy who looked like a black Golden Retriever.

I thought he’d also be a much-needed distraction for Val. She took good care of him and kept loving on her older dog, Buddy, but nothing released her from the demons that held her in that hole.