Spring Cleaning Blues

Around this time of year seven years ago I was doing a little spring cleaning, moving things around and opting for a new wall color to paint my bedroom until something horrible happened. It's the kind of thing we make sure we set our home alarms on to prevent and set up a monitoring company for. Yet, having all that in place it still happened to me. I wasn't home at the time and when I pulled up to my driveway and saw my front door busted open I feared that I was going to find Tobie lying listless somewhere. Tobie was my long coat chihuahua who had been in my life since he was a little puppy. Was the intruder still in the house? Was it more than one?

Was Tobie there? Did he/her/they take him? Did Tobie run out of the house and get hit by a car? Whenever Tobie heard a noise or something he would bark so I doubted he would be hiding

quietly somewhere. My mind began racing in all of about thirty seconds and I quickly

called 911 while my hands trembled. After the police scoured the house they came to my car and let me know they found Tobie under the coffee table in the living room and he was alive.

They escorted me inside the house and I couldn't hold that dog long enough. I was relieved for the moment and the police began the police report and finger prints. The experience was nothing short of unsettling to say the very least and I don't think I have ever felt completely safe

ever since.

This weekend while doing some spring cleaning of files I've had in storage I found a picture of how I had my dresser set up with a matching set of irreplaceable jewelry boxes gifted to me.

Knowing that my previous home was burglarized in 2012 and some of my family heir looms were in those jewelry boxes that were stolen ( including my college sorority ring ) makes my stomach sink allover again. Worse than that is knowing that whoever did it kicked my late dog Tobie and poor Tobie was never quite the same. It stirs up a lot of emotion remembering that I took him to the vet to see why he wasn't walking the same and staring into space and how I feel like he hung on to life for a couple more years just for me. I always wondered what exactly happened and what was done to Tobie and I continued loving and pampering him for as long as I could and as long as he let me. Add that another one of my cousin Meng Lang's little dogs passed away recently and it's all striking big cords with my heart.

I know one cannot control the things that other people do and the things that may happen to us so it's necessary to keep it moving, do what we can and pray to have peace of mind, body and soul without getting too caught up with what we cannot control. If we do, we may paralyze ourselves with sadness and grief so, I will let myself feel the anger and sadness for a little while and then I have to release it and re-gain focus. How have some of you coped with unforeseen cirsumstances, sadness and grief??