Yep.  One of my heroes is a dog.  Weird, huh?  Well, there’s a reason for it.  I mean, seriously… tell me that after coming home to this face every day for two years, it wouldn’t make YOUR life better too:

I grew up always having a dog around.  My parents had a dog when I was born, a Chihuahua named Teddy.  Teddy actually ended up living mostly on our front porch (enclosed, not outside) after I was born because he became jealous having a baby in the house.  He had been the baby, and then all of a sudden there was this new tiny person in the house getting more attention than him.  I can understand him not being too happy about that.  Teddy died when I was about eleven, and my parents decided that it would be okay for us to get another furry four-legged pet.  (And it would NOT be a cat.  My dad had a huge vendetta against cats.  One had killed his pet chicken when he was a kid and he never quite got over it, thus we were by default determined to be “dog people”.)   I definitely owe my love of dogs and other animals to my parents… we even owned a pet shop when I was growing up.  Between all of the fish in the shop and at home as well as the hamsters we bred at one point (we named them after candy bars – think Hershey, Snickers, and Zero), our house was never without some kind of pet.

So when we decided to get another dog, we found someone that had just had a litter of mixed terriers and visited their home to see if one of them might fit in and be the newest member of our family.  I remember going to this family’s house and meeting the four dogs that were in the litter.  There was one white/light one that was quite rambunctious and lively, almost a bit too lively.  And there were two black ones that were pretty quiet, one of them being the runt.  And then there was one that was black and white with even a little bit of brown mixed in, with a kind of “in-between” personality, not too quiet and not too hyper, either.  This is the one we took home with us – a little girl puppy that we ended up naming Missie.

Missie was with us for quite a long time, up until after I had graduated from college with my bachelors degree.  And she was a part of a two-dog household for a while, after I grew up and moved out on my own and decided that I also wanted a furry roommate (guys with chest hair definitely not an option) of my own.  I searched the local Freecycle Network and found a dog that had been abandoned on the south side, an all-black cocker spaniel named Chase.  I adopted him and brought him home, only to discover that poor Chase had very severe separation anxiety.  He barked a LOT whenever I would leave him, enough that my neighbors complained.  And if I didn’t leave him confined to a crate, he tore things up.  I ended up really being too busy to take care of him since I was a full-time student and working part-time at that point as well, so my parents took him in.  He joined Missie until she passed away just a few years ago.  Now Chase—who is totally a very sweet, gentle dog—keeps my mom company.

That brings us to the present day, or at least two years ago.  Two years ago yesterday—July 19, 2008—I decided that I wanted to try to get another dog.  (Well, really, I decided a few days before that when I was searching on Petfinder, but I actually got her on July 19.)  I found a dog that had been at Southside Animal Shelter in Indianapolis, but she had heartworm and was staying with a “foster family” while she was being treated for it.  I came across a picture of Sophie on the Petfinder site and decided that she might be a good fit for me.  So I sent some emails to find out more about her, as well as making a visit to the family she was staying with to meet her.  Sophie seemed to take a liking to me right away, as she ran right to me when I called her name.

It’s been an interesting two years.  Sophie has now been through a lot with me, including some escape attempts where she went swimming in the apartment pond as well as one that ended up with her head stuck in her crate and a trip to get stitches in her neck.  We had to learn to adjust to each other’s ways, and we have.  I’m glad she got to meet and know my dad.  He loved her, even though she is a bit wild and definitely more rambunctious than Chase.  What’s even funnier is that Ricky loves her too.  And he pretty much hates dogs.  (I think they just get along so well because they both love attention, so they feed off of each other.)

So yes… Sophie is one of my heroes.  When I have a bad day, I flip through the pictures on my phone and see the face, big dark eyes, and wet nose that I get to home to and cuddle with (and no, I don’t mean Ricky) and it makes me smile.  When I’m down or when I cry, she is always there to let me know I am loved unconditionally.  I rescued her, but some days I feel like she rescues me.  If you’ve adopted a pet, you know what I mean.  She’s my kid, and my life would have never been the same without her.

So being the time of year it is, I have noticed more and more people posting on Twitter or Facebook or their blogs what they are thankful for. While there are definitely things/people/etc that I am very thankful for, I think I’m also going to use this opportunity to just be totally honest about what things have been like for me lately. I’ve hinted at it to people, and even expressed it to some, but just for my own form of therapy, I thought I would explain it a bit.

Everyone knows that my dad passed away in March of this year, and if you read my blog or keep up with me regularly, you know a lot of the other things that have happened in my life this year. Shortly before my dad passed away, I had decided to go back to grad school at the IU Kelley School of Business to get my MBA. Following that decision came a long process that included studying for the GMAT, getting letters of recommendation, writing an essay, and taking prerequisite classes, among other things. I continued this process after my dad died because, well, it was a decision I made and something that I wanted for myself, so there was really no question about following through with it.

So I submitted everything, took the GMAT and got a good score, took my prereq, and got into the program. School started in August, and I have been on the journey since then. It has honestly been an up and down road the last few months. First of all, grad school is hard. Maybe not for everyone, but for me it is pretty hard at times. If the work isn’t hard, keeping up with all of the work is. I have struggled at times to easily understand the topics we have studied so far. I have had no real business training other than on the job from being in a professional IT (information technology) environment. Things like accounting (other than the short course I had in high school) and economics (other than what I remember from college stats classes) are pretty foreign to me. And a lot of the time, well, I’ve felt pretty dumb. And some days, this feeling carries over into work too, when I’m facing some new task that involves code that I’m unfamiliar with or functionality that I don’t know how to tackle.  This all leads to a lot of feelings of not being good enough, whether it is with work, school, relationships, or other areas of my life.

Now – combine those feelings with the fact that along with the death of my dad and the stress of work and school, I tend to be a stress eater. Sweets are my drug of choice a lot of times when it comes to looking for a pick-me-up. This has led to gaining a few extra pounds that I really don’t want. So of course that doesn’t help with those self-worth issues any.

Only a few close friends really know how much of a struggle this has been for me. And while advice is great, I honestly already know most of the advice. I know my self-worth, I really do. I know that I’m pretty, that I’m smart, that I will get through school and get my MBA, and that I will even lose those pounds if I really want to. But right now – it’s very hard to get that from my head to my heart. Struggling to feel something emotionally where you just don’t can be a very crippling thing, and a very difficult thing to understand, especially from the viewpoint of those that love and care about the person struggling with this issue. And every little small thing that somehow feeds (or even seems to feed) the lie can feel like a complete emotional attack.

So, here’s my admission. These self-worth issues combined with grief have made close, trusted friends suggest that seeking counseling might not be a bad idea, so I’ve decided to check it out via CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) at IUPUI. It’s a minimal fee service that IUPUI offers their students. And I have to admit that having someone to talk to about some of these things, a third party, can’t hurt.

So what does all of this have to do with Thanksgiving and being thankful? Well, as I’ve basically said many times now, it’s been a rough year. I don’t like admitting that, and I don’t like admitting that I need help. But I’m not sure what my year might have looked like without support from friends, for which I’m so grateful. Thank you, Ricky, gRegor, Seren, and Maurice, for being among the ones who know me best and still love me without fail. And thank you to that special volunteer at Outreach who let me know that I’m not alone, that I’m normal, and that grief can take years to overcome. I’m blessed to have so many great people in my life.

I’m also thankful that there have been a lot of wonderful things in my life this year as well. I’ve been able to achieve some pretty lofty goals and that fact makes me know that I can do anything I set my mind to. In addition to getting into grad school and working towards my MBA, I’ve also managed to travel a lot this year and visit some new places (including Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua) as well as getting the next car I wanted, a 2005 Mini Cooper convertible.  Even though sometimes I can’t really feel it, I know I have accomplished a lot in the midst of a hard year.

I know I’m facing some difficult holidays coming up, but there are things to celebrate this year as well.  And I’ve realized that it’s okay to accept how I feel and to acknowledge that I’m not always capable of living up to expectations, especially my own.  But what I have done and what I am is still perfectly as it should be, even if there’s room for improvement (and there always is).  And there will always be those out there to love me and remind me of that, if I choose to let them.

There’s an idea that I’ve had for a little while about a new kind of blog post series that I think I am going to start.  See, there are a lot of really cool people in my life, people that mean a lot to me or have helped me or touched me in some way.  I’d like to start writing posts about these people, something of a tribute series to the people that mean a lot to me.  I’m going to call it “Heroes in My World”.

Welcome to the first post in this new series.  And I can’t think of anyone else that I would rather make it about besides my father.  If you read my blog at all, you know that my father passed away earlier this year.  And while I have blogged about his death and the experience that has been for me, I don’t think I have really talked too much about who he was, either for the world, my family, or me personally.

I honestly feel like I grew up not necessarily knowing my dad very well.  He owned his own business and was gone “out on installation” a lot.  See, my dad’s business was making and installing kitchen/bathroom/etc cabinets.  He decided he wanted to do that when he was a teenager and started his own business shortly after marrying my mom.  And, well, he was GREAT at it.  Not too many cabinet businesses actually make custom cabinets.  A lot of kitchen and bathroom cabinets are factory-made.  My dad was also a perfectionist at what he did, and while it may have only paid off financially enough to just support his family, he had a stellar reputation.  The local newspaper for the town that I grew up in has an insert once a week that showcases houses for sale.  The coolest thing in the world was seeing the times that a house was featured as having “Hugill cabinets”.

I remember going through some rough times in my childhood that I won’t get into too much, they are a bit too personal.  But through those times, I remember being scared, but knowing my dad would take care of things.  And I didn’t always get along with him (what kid or teenager does?), but looking back, I can see how I am a lot like him.  I think I relate to people very similar to how he did.  I find it very easy to talk to and be friends with just about anyone, and looking back, I can see that he was the same way.  In our small town, people knew him everywhere he went.  And after having worked at several local businesses as a teenager, I found the same was true about me.

This Christmas will be hard for my family.  My dad will be greatly missed, as he was a big part of our holiday celebration.  It’s grown smaller each year, it seems – my paternal grandparents used to be a part of it and are now gone as well.  One thing I really remember about Christmas each year growing up was that my dad always did his shopping on Christmas Eve.  I vividly remember when I was 16 and working at the local Walmart on the day before Christmas and seeing my dad there shopping for my mom.  Mine and my brother’s presents were already wrapped, of course, as my mom did that.  But most of her presents wouldn’t be purchased until the last minute.  He did that pretty much every year, and then would wrap them in comics from the Sunday paper.  Of course, until I got old enough to know how to wrap, then he pawned the job off on me.  What I wouldn’t give to be wrapping those presents for him this year…

I miss my dad, and not just because he was my dad.  He was a fun person to be around, always joking, laughing, and teasing people (sometimes to a fault!).  He was loved by so many people, and the number of them at his funeral and visitation was evidence of that.  For years and years, my dad used to carry around a poem in his wallet that he had found, something that he apparently strived for, something we should all strive for, and something that I can say without a doubt he did indeed achieve.  Here it is:

Success

To laugh often and much
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can only hope that when I die, I am as successful.  There’s a song by Jimmy Eat World that I can’t help but crying when I hear now, because it makes me think so much of my father.  I’ve posted it on here before, but to me it sums up my feelings so clearly that I just can’t leave out the two stanzas that speak to me the most.

What would you think of me now?
So lucky, so strong, so proud
I never said thank you for that
Now I’ll never have a chance

If you were with me tonight
I’d sing to you just one more time
A song for a heart so big, that God wouldn’t let it live

May angels lead you in…

I love you, Dad.  You’re very much missed. <3