Little Boxes

I was sitting in the carport by my house with a can of spray paint in my hand today and I had a flash back...

In the elementary school, for Valentines Day the teachers have all the students bring a little box with an envelope-sized hole in it to school for their valentines. There is a competition between all of the kids with homemade boxes as to whose is most creative and the winner gets a candy bar. So I ran home and my Dad helped me find a box (it was actually big enough to hold everyone's valentines with plenty of room to spare, but I didn't care). We went to the store and bought pink spray paint (gotta love it!) and I sat outside in the backyard after school one day and spray painted my box... In February, in MT. I'm surprised I didn't come up with pink frostbite. After that Dad suggested (he and I have always had some ideas that were a bit over our heads, but we dont care) that instead of cutting a hand shaped-hole in the top like the instructions said, we should cut a heart-shaped hole. So we did. hahaha. And I wrote cool phrases on it with sharpie marker, and put stickers on it - the whole sha-bang. The next day (2/14) I took it to school and got 1st place for creativity!! :). The Prize: a Snicker's bar. Gotta love the irony... :D

But today I was out on the cement in the carport for a different reason. It still had to do with love, but a different kind... Today I spray painted a little 16"x12"x10" wooden box pink. Sometime next week I will put a small, fluffy, soft, beautiful little poodle inside of it. My first dog: Missy Poodle Puppy Dog, as I used to call her needs to be put down, and the time has come. I will miss her very much, and I hear that the first pet you lose (I'm not counting the tens of thousands of little starter gold fish that overheated in my fishtank when I was 6.) is the hardest, and you never forget her. I can't say I didn't see this coming, or that I dont know its the right thing, but still I will be sad. Next Sunday when I go to church, I wont have to feed her and check her diaper before I leave, and, yes that will hurt very much, but we will move on and survive and cherish the life that was shared with us for far longer than we could've hoped for on this earth.

But I do know, that she is not alone in any way, and I do believe there is some sort of a little 'doggy heaven' out there for her somewhere, just like there is a heaven for us out there. And I find comfort in that, because one day we will all end up in Little Boxes...