A Shift in Perspective - Coops Story
Disclaimer: I’ve said before that I want this space to be a positive, inspiring and happy place but it would be unfair and misleading if I didn’t share my REAL life and the things that happen in it. So here we go…
As most of you know we had to make the difficult decision to say goodbye to our Coopy boy last week.* It was the single hardest day of my life. Cooper was the BEST dog. We rescued him from Indianapolis Animal Care Services 3 years ago. He was the only pup in the whole place just sitting in his kennel silently starring up at J and I with his paws crossed. The moment we saw him we knew he was going to complete our family. He was without a doubt one of the sweetest souls I’ve ever met. Life was unfair and unkind to him and he didn’t deserve it, not one bit.
I’ve lost family before, back when I was young and could hardly comprehend what was happening but I’ve never felt anything like losing Coop. As a result of these never before felt feelings, I knew it was necessary to take a break from social media and the blog, pretty much everything in fact… and allow myself to grieve, spend time with Bub & Berk (our other two pups), and put myself back together again. It was during this time that I found myself reflecting on life, death, whats important, and whats not. This kind of grief brought up every regret I’ve ever had, all my fears, and some of the darkest places in my heart. Things like, “I should have taken him on more walks.” “I should have given him more treats.” “I should have loved on him more.” “I should have had that fence put in years ago.” “I should have….” “I should have…” “I should have….” and here’s what it taught me…
If you have ever taken TIME for granted, you are taking your LIFE for granted! Learn to catch yourself and never do it again. It’s easy to let time go by without realizing it’s going… and it doesn’t stop for anyone. Time doesn’t care about you or what you have planned for the future. It doesn’t care about anything for that matter. It’s limited, not guaranteed, unforgiving and can be unfair and unkind to you no matter how “good” you have been. It’s for this reason that LIFE is so special.
I’ve decided that my social presence will look a bit different going forward. I’m no longer going to go out of my way to create and showcase artificial happy moments, instead I am going to only share the real, happy, natural moments with you all. More ‘go do this with your friends and family’; and a bit less of ‘buy this because you need it’. Don’t get me wrong, I still plan to share things I love and things I think are worth mentioning but I feel the more valuable content I can share is things to do with friends, creative ways to spend time with family and how to collect memories over things. I’ve always been a ‘moments and memories over material possessions’ kinda gal; but now more than ever I want to inspire you, inspire those around me and those that choose to follow me, to spend TIME making memories, to get the most out of LIFE, and to truly live as if there is no tomorrow. We hear all the time… “life is short, live it”, “YOLO”, “you only get one shot, make it count” and all the other short, cliche’ quotes that people overshare without really understanding that they are actually serious statements.
With that said… stop reading this, go do something right now that your future self would thank you for. Be present. Call, text, hug, hangout with your family and friends any chance you get. Say sorry, take tens of thousands of photos and journal about every moment you don’t want to forget. Say no when your time is more valuable elsewhere, be thankful for what you have instead of spending time wishing for what you don’t and take no moment for granted.
Inspired by our best boy, Cooper. Rest in Heaven Coopy. We wish we had more time with you bud.
*Cooper was suffering from a disease called Degenerative Myelopathy which affects the spinal cord, resulting in slowly progressive hind limb weakness and paralysis. This particular disease has no cure and progresses differently between dogs. Unfortunately for Coop, each day that went by it was more and more noticeable how fast it was actually happening.
