Tag: dogs

What did we do before Zara?

On By amandalgoodwinLeave a comment

The impossibility of shared unconditional love

Because I was older—10 and then 14—when my last two sisters, Maria and Teresa, were born, I have very clear memories of cooing over them with my mom. We’d marvel at their tiny-ness and say things like:

“Can you even believe she used to not be here?”

We’d share in our version of loving nos.

As an only child, Briggs didn’t have any of that. Or hadn’t, until we brought Zara into our family three years ago this December.

Just this morning, his stomach hurting, none of us too quick to get out of bed and into the unseasonably wintery spring, he said: 

“Can you believe there was a time before Zara Dew? What did we even do without her?”

Then we both melted into full weekend puppy cuddles.

Zara is not an easy-going dog. She’s a reactive rescue with strong preferences for people and creatures. Thankfully, she adores those who primarily care for her—me, Briggs, Todd, Briggs’s dad (Ken), and my mom (Omi). She’s also wild for my neighbors Tom and Michelle, their son Gavin, and their dog, Mac.

For the past six months, a friend of Todd’s—another chef named Isaac—has been staying at his house with his yellow lab, Marco. At first, Zara wasn’t sure how she felt about either. But now, when we’re there, she does her best to nap with Marco and keep an eye on Isaac.

Still, there’s no doubting her preference for me.

Briggs can hardly walk past us without commenting: 

“Mumma, that puppy LOVES you. I mean LOVES you.”

He’s not wrong.

When she has it her way, I’m next to her—napping, writing, taking a meeting, or catching up with someone I love. She doesn’t mind the laptop on my lap, but she definitely prefers it quiet—just the sound of keys, not voices.

Lately, it’s felt harder to believe in my own value.

For most of my life, my work defined me. It gave me identity. And over the past few years, that identity has been slowly eroded—until now, I’m left trying to reshape something that feels… solid. In the past, when I felt low, I’d think of myself at 10 years old and feel proud of who I became. These days, it’s more like she’d shrug and say something clever, like, “Figures.”

Maybe it’s not a coincidence that all of this started around the time Zara came home.

My connection with neighbors. Daily walks outside. The small, unmissable proof that I still show up: keeping her safe, warm, fed, hydrated, and engaged. Staying present with Briggs as he figures out his way through adolescence.

Zara sees me. And Briggs. And somehow, Briggs and I—on our best days—see each other too. No, love isn’t enough to make it through everything. But it is something. And it’s a remarkable place to begin again.

Zara snuggling with Briggs’s favorite blanket this week, while he was at school.

Seeing it Another Way

On By amandalgoodwin2 Comments

Everyone I know who wears glasses or corrective lenses has their version of the “seeing the leaves through the trees” moment.

When you don’t realize your vision is compromised, you assume that everyone sees leaves as blurry blobs and dots. Then, you get your glasses or lenses, walk outside, and suddenly—individual leaves come into focus. The world shifts. And with that shift comes the inevitable question: What else haven’t I been seeing?

I’ve never spent much time thinking about how personal sight really is. I’ve known, in a general sense, that we each hear, feel, and taste things differently. But when it comes to seeing, it’s easier to assume that while we might notice different details, we still see the same tree.

Then cancer gave me an eye disease. And that eye disease came with vision loss, pain, inflammation, oral steroids, topical steroids—and, on Tuesday, a follow-up ophthalmology appointment that turned into unscheduled laser surgery to prevent my retina from detaching.

The surgery wasn’t exactly painful, but it was wildly uncomfortable. I struggled to get through it. What I decided to play on loop in my mind was: I’m living in the future. Because it’s the truth. Here I am, just months after a late-stage cancer diagnosis and emergency brain surgery, still in my world—getting my eye fixed by a laser. And after all that, I’d even get to go home and sleep in my own bed.

(Even if I didn’t know, that norovirus would hit me later that night, leaving me to spend the next 18 hours making the slow, messy commute between the bed and the bathroom.)

The norovirus made it impossible for me to keep my PET scan appointment yesterday—a scan I’d been counting on to see how well the treatments were attacking the cancer in my lungs, liver, and lymph nodes. Missing that scan was disappointing. I thought yesterday would be a day of answers. Instead, it was another day of waiting.

But by this afternoon, when solid food and electrolytes stayed down, I realized I could see it differently:

Maybe my body just needed more time to clear out the junk before giving me a good, clean look at everything. And that’s what will happen on February 10.

This lovey girl – Zara Dew didn’t leave my side through the whole ordeal. I love her so much.