Miracle From The Madness

A new beginning for a lost soul and a pup who needed a raiser.

Depression was something I never really knew much about.

In hindsight, and in my adult years, I grew to understand that it had actually been a part of my life all along. In my beautiful Mum. As a child, you don't often see what is right in front of your face, or have any comprehension of what is going on underneath the surface. Especially when your main people, your parents, make your childhood virtually perfect.

It was only later, when the dreaded darkness descended and wrapped its blanket of misery around me and dragged me down into the depths of misery and despair for years on end, that I finally saw my Mum in a different light and all the little signs I had never seen before. The blanket covered her as well. It probably always had.

For 16 years, I fought with no help. Day after day, the endless fight to lift the weighted darkness from my soul was a battle raging inside of me.
Thoughts of suicide, even though I knew I would never have the balls to do it, were like a beacon of light for me. If someone had left a little pill beside my bed with the promise of a peaceful sleep that never ended, I would not be here now. I didn't want a painful death, or a death that maybe did not go according to plan, and I was left in a worse state than I started. Nor did I then want my husband to have to deal with that mistake and a life of intensified misery by my side. So I trudged on, through the darkness, endless, suffocating, soul destroying darkness, till I could take it no more.

I went to the doctor, and I just remember saying, "I can't do this anymore, I need help."

The first round of help came in the form of tablets, and my god, they are my little ray of sunshine that I could not do without, wouldn't even try to do without. They are my forever friends and I wish like hell I had had the guts to seek them out long before I did. But I can't change that so.....

Then my life changed again when I lost our little boy. No, he was not a child. He was an Australian Silky Terrier, and he was our world. Our little boy. He had seen me through it all. All the years of darkness. And unfortunately, he wore the brunt of that darkness at times, along with my husband. He lived for 17.5 years, and without him, I was lost.

I had roughly two years with no dog in my life. I was trying to find myself, you know, everyone is always trying to find themselves. One day, and I remember it clearly, we were sitting at our family room table, and my husband pushed a local newspaper across in front of me and said, "Here, they are looking for puppy raisers at guide dogs. You always said you would like to try your hand at this once Ronson was no longer with us. Maybe it's time you gave it a go"

And that is when my life changed in ways I would never, ever imagine.

And it all started with a 14-week-old pup named Bindi.