Lulu & Her Lore
The birth of my child and the chain of events that led me to her.
Lulu’s name came to my mom in a dream. But before we jump ahead to how Lulu came into our lives, it’s important to set the stage as to how we finally got Lulu, after years of rejection from my parents.
My brother and I have always wanted a dog. We would jump at the opportunity to dogsit and begged our parents to take us to the shelter every other weekend. We watched hours of Dogs 101, a documentary show about every single dog breed imaginable and played Nintendogs: Dachshund and Friends like crazy. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school where tragedy after tragedy had to occur in order for us to finally get a dog.
Essentially, my cousin died of Leukemia my junior year and my mom was re-diagnosed with the same cancer that she had 10ish years prior. Both of these situations sucked. My cousin’s death was painful and my mom’s cancer felt agonizing. Laura, my cousin, died in Colombia and in a way, I felt like I was able to have some sort of closure as soon as I got back to Florida. With my mother, however, this diagnosis caused an extreme shift in our daily lives. My mom moved to Boston for three months to receive radiation treatment and my brother and I relocated to Toronto to stay with family during some of this time. The treatment worked and she healed in a matter of months. Obviously these months were extremely intense on her but I am not here to tell her story. If you wanna hear more about it, just call my mom and she can get into the specifics.
When my mom came back to Florida, we were all happy to have her back and excited to get on with our normal lives. Sometime during all of this, my dad’s friend’s dog had puppies. They were Terrier / Shih-Tzu mixes and he had a black-and-white puppy that he really wanted to gift to my dad. My parents strangely accepted. After all of those years of resistance, they finally gave in. I also thought this was an interesting way to say: “This year has been hard for everyone, have a puppy.”
This puppy’s name was Gota which means droplet or piece in Spanish. Gota was a rambunctious, daring, and playful puppy. On top of that, very stupid. But her cuteness made up for her stupidity. Gota didn’t walk, she hopped everywhere. She could not figure out how to pee on the pee-pee pad but was quick to mark her territory in my mom’s car. She also loved to jump in our pool and swim around. My brother and I were thrilled and could not imagine that our life-long dream finally came true. She felt like we found the missing puzzle piece.
My brother and I went to school and my mom notified us that while she was gardening, Gota jumped into the pool and my mom had to bathe her, causing her to be late to work. Later that day, my friend Sabrina dropped my brother and I off after school and came in to say hello to Gota. As Sabrina was leaving, Gota hopped outside and ran to Sabrina’s car. I saw her crawl underneath but I didn’t think much of it. When Sabrina was ready to leave and before she turned on the ignition, I looked underneath the car to grab Gota for us to go inside. Gota was just lying under the car, all slumped. She ate something, had a seizure, and died. She was five months old. To this day, we’re still unsure if she ate a poisonous frog or if she was just unhealthy. The vet also couldn’t tell us what happened. She died as soon as we got to the hospital.
I think I cried for weeks. I remember crying so much that I just felt comfortable sobbing during class. Being at home sucked because everything reminded me of her. Just seeing her bed and toys caused me to spiral. My parents quietly took care of all of her things and stored it away. Just as quickly Gota came into our lives, she left. A couple of months went by and we slowly started to move on. I think with the death of Gota, I also began properly processing the loss of my cousin, and together, it just resulted in one long cry-fest.
That same friend from earlier, Sabrina, told me that her dogs, a Shih Tzu and a Terrier, just had puppies and she wanted to give me one. What were the odds of us finding another puppy of the exact same breed? And am I ready to go through the potential pain of once again owning a pet, falling in love, for the dog to one day die? I thought it wasn’t worth going through that pain again. Personally, I was ok with living life without a dog but my family got excited at the idea of a new puppy. Everybody randomly had hope and I remember thinking how odd that was. It IS very odd how we can quickly get over certain things.
Sabrina dropped off this sticky, greasy, brown puppy and told us that she applied some sort of oil on it because she wanted her to look “nice”. Instead, this dog looked like an oiled-up bodybuilder from the ‘80s and left a weird residue on our hands every time we touched it. The puppy entered the house, quickly peed on the pee-pee pad and started napping. I was extremely impressed. The dog was nameless for a couple of days until the name “Lulu” came into my mom’s dream. This name came into my mom’s dream because at the time, my mother was obsessed with wearing Lululemon from head to toe. She thinks it was some sort of prophecy dream but it was literally just a brand name seeping into her subconscious.
From the beginning to now, Lulu has always been an incredibly smart dog. She has a strong personality and loves to walk approximately two miles a day. She was extremely playful as a puppy but has mellowed out to be a very chill senior dog. Lulu is now 9.5 years old and has only known a world of love and luxury. She enjoys to sunbathe in the mornings and hunt creatures at night. She has proudly killed countless lizards, birds, cockroaches and a single baby possum. My dad and I held a funeral for the baby possum and forced Lulu to attend. We also buried the baby possum far away from our house because my dad was convinced that the mother possum would kill Lulu as collateral in this new dog-possum gang rivalry.
Lulu’s favorite meal of all-time would have to include wild salmon with a side of rice and a nice spoonful of guava paste as a sweet treat. She is extremely independent like a cat. She doesn’t like to be held for too long but really enjoys to sit in-between your legs while you watch TV. When it thunders or if there’s fireworks, she’ll shake like a leaf and nervously poop throughout the house. Lulu is also extremely perceptive and knows when you’re leaving for vacation or if you’re feeling sad. She is everything I want in a dog and more.
My life has drastically changed since meeting Lulu. I’ve learned to be gentle, loving and patient. Similarly to the Grinch, I’ve felt my heart grow three sizes larger and hope it never goes back to the way it was. If anything ever happens to her, I think I would die. She’s taught me invaluable lessons about love and companionship that I hope everyone gets to experience with another animal. I’ve also seen my mother, a person who was so resistant to the idea of a dog, become softer with Lulu and appreciative of her existence. She occasionally boils her a chicken breast and always makes sure she is fed at dinner time. The story prior to Lulu is a painful one but I feel so happy that I gave myself another opportunity to give in to a love like no other. Thank you for reading ♥
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Dogs are so important