Weddingbee Blog

It has been a long week in the Prairie Dog household, because of our non-prairie, regular dog. Winston Churchill is not even 4 yet, but has had advanced cataracts since before we rescued him. He’s the sweetest boy imaginable, but the world is a little scary when you’re post-abuse and blind.

I’ll be honest—I felt hesitant about putting a dog through the huge ordeal of cataract surgery. But the rescue that found and fostered him was very supportive and the vet center just amazing, so we decided to give our boy a shot at experiencing life in technicolor for this rest of his dog days. (Coldplay and Florence & the Machine reference—nailed it.)

The cataract removal procedure is a heck of an ordeal, and it had to be done in our hometown over three days. I won’t bore you with up-and-back to the vet center details or how I cried as we walked out, leaving him there. (Miss PD- 1, Maturity- 0) He saw us with normal doggy vision for the first time early this morning, and it’s incredible to watch him actually look out the car window or react to one of us shaking a toy around. (Full disclosure: I cried again.)

(This is a picture from one of his last days of being blind. He’s sleeping right now so I can’t take a current one…plus, with his shaved face and lamp shade apparatus, he looks like a one-man Sarah McLachlan commercial.)

With the cat and dog in their carriers in the back, Mr. PD pulled out of the parking lot, singing in this half-crazed, elated voice, “My family’s back, my family’s all together. I have got my family all back together.”

And that’s the thought my mind has been lingering on. We’ve been a family—me and him—for years. It’s just how it’s worked out. I didn’t mean for us to transition from “boyfriend/girlfriend” to “family” way before we ever got engaged, but we did. Winston’s surgery is one of many difficult situations we’ve weathered together, and also one of the joyful ones. Together, we’ve faced personal and family illness, deaths and crushing disappointments and existential crises (the latter is all me, baby). But we’ve also shared some of the best moments of our lives, had new adventures, amazing celebrations and trips and years of living the good life.

But, really, life as a family is more pedestrian than the these extreme highs and extreme lows. It’s about making each other laugh after a long day, doing little things together like making dinner and working out, and relying on the other person for your needs. It’s last week, when Mr. PD made a late-night Target run for more tissues and a new humidifier because I had a miserable sinus infection. (I’m sexy.) It’s reassuring each other that the surgery will be fine, helping each other wrangle the dog for the 3 sets of eyedrops he’ll need 4 times daily for the next couple of weeks.

I hear people say “starting a family” as a synonym for “having a baby.” And I hear people say that getting married means that “we’re a family now.” That man of mine has been family for years. Add in the two pets, and it’s a family that makes me feel joyful enough to make up a song on the way out of the dog hospital.

(Impromptu Christmas picture from this year. I’m arching my back; it’s not a baby bump, okay?!)

Do you consider yourself and your partner to be family?