The Widow's Peek: How's Bella?

Virtually every time I talk to someone, they start by asking me, “How are you?” It always seems genuine—they always want to know the truth. And the truth, as I mentioned in my last blog post, is, “I'm OK. Ups and downs.” Sometimes accompanied by the Tom-Selleck-on-Friends head bob.

And I'm getting a lot of Facebook support—lots of like, love and care reactions to my posts, usually from a wide variety of friends and family and almost always one or two who are a happy surprise—as well as email and text messages, often just when I need them.

But what I didn't expect was the number of people who ask, “How's Bella?” I don't know why this should surprise me. People know how close Vic was with all our animals as well as how much they loved him. Here, too, I have my standard answer: “She's OK—she was always more my dog than Vic's.” That, too, is also true. In the beginning, she seemed to like us equally, but over the years, she got much closer to me. So she doesn't have any behavior changes—she eats, sleeps, poops, walks, just as she always did—but I do think she misses him (especially when I forget to check her water bowls 🙄🥴).

Shortly after he passed away, I noticed she would spend part of every day sleeping on his bed.

She did that for about a week, and then she just stopped. The next day, a friend spent the day with me cleaning out Vic's closet and drawers. I was trying to get through as many of his things as I could so that people who were coming to town for the service could take anything I wasn't keeping, and I was going to donate the rest to the OUR Center. Unfortunately, the OUR Center wasn't taking clothing donations at the time, so I just left all the clothes on the bed.

One day a few weeks ago, I heard Bella flap her ears around midnight. She does that when she wants to go outside to do her business. So I yawned, pulled on my robe and slippers, and went out into the hallway. But no Bella. I turned on the stair light and looked for her in her bed. No Bella. I turned around to see if maybe she had slipped into my bedroom unnoticed and something caught my eye. It was Bella, standing in the middle of Vic's clothes on his bed. She looked very guilty, as if she thought she wasn't supposed to be there. (Sorry, no pictures—did I mention it was midnight?) Anyway, she jumped down, and I took her outside.

When I came back upstairs, I moved all of Vic's clothes off the bed and put up a blanket he liked to use when he was cold at night. She didn't go up there that night, but the next day while I was working, I noticed she wasn't sleeping in her bed behind me. I leaned back to see if she was in her bed in my room. No Bella. So I grabbed my phone (it wasn't midnight), and there she was, on Vic's bed.

Since then, she has been on Vic's bed at least once a day. Usually it's late at night, and I can hear her flap her ears, jump off the bed and come get me to take her outside. (Vic used to take her when it was the middle of the night, and I wonder if she's remembering that?) Sometimes, I don't see her at all, but I know she's been there because:

Blanket as I put it on the bed

Blanket when I wake up in the morning

I really love seeing the evidence of her on Vic's bed, because even though she was always my dog, I know she loved him too, in her own “special” way. 😂

So thank you for caring not just about me but about my beloved Bella. Since I have been so self-absorbed in my last few blog posts, I'll cut this one short and just leave you with some of my favorite pictures of Bella over the past few months.