When Life Touched My Heart

With each one of my children I learned something from them that I have held deep in my heart. One of the things I learned from raising Dallin was the depth of love a person can have for an animal. I had a lot of pets growing up, ones I loved and spent a lot of time with but nothing has ever compared to watching Dallin with a guinea pig named Harry. It touched me.

We had a family who attended our church who had Harry for a pet. They got tired of all the work it took to take care of him. They asked us if we wanted to take him. Dallin had just turned eight years old and he wanted a pet badly for his birthday and he begged me to let him have Harry. He promised he would take good care of him. I folded to the pressure and Harry was delivered to our house. It was love at first sight between Dallin and Harry. We fixed up a cage for him and he became an adopted member of the family. Dallin loved Harry. I have never seen a child love a pet more than he loved Harry and by this time we had had a lot of pets come and go at our house; mice, hamsters, cats, lizards, turtles, fish, birds, mice, etc. Dallin spent all of his free time with Harry. He would do his homework with him and take him where he went in the house. He fed him well and he would take him outside to eat the grass on warm summer days. He would even give him a bath every week. It was a familiar sight to see Dallin with Harry asleep in his lap. Harry now loved Dallin as much as Dallin loved him. They had forged a strong bond of love.

Dallin and Harry

Harry being cuddled after a bath

This was taken on the last day of his life. Harry was eating grass while I
trimmed some mattes out of his hair.

Then almost a year later, in June, Dallin gave Harry his weekly bath, fed him and put him to bed for the night. When we got up the next morning Harry was dead. Dallin was devastated and held Harry all morning and cried. He didn't want to bury him. I finally convinced him that we had to bury Harry. We made him a pretty little coffin with a soft inside and buried him in our pet cemetery, which had grown quite large over the years from all the pets we had had. Dallin painted Harry's gravestone and we had a beautiful funeral and put some pretty flowers on his grave. Dallin was so choked up he couldn't talk so I did my best to give a loving speech of our time with Harry. It was a very sad day.

Dallin made Harry's headstone

I have never seen a sadder little boy

I thought after the funeral and a few days Dallin would be fine and he would be able to go about his summer being a happy kid, free from school to play. I tried to plan fun things for all of us to do to get his mind off his grieving. None of it helped. Every morning and spare minute I would find Dallin sitting by the empty cage or out by Harry's grave with swollen red eyes. He was having a lot harder time than I thought he would. The days turned to weeks and the tears were still flowing every day. I prayed over how to help him feel better. I kept feeling like Dallin just needed another pet to love to fill the void left by Harry.

I took Dallin to the pet store and the first animals he wanted to see were guinea pigs. The pet store had quite a few. The guinea pigs would try to bite us and they didn't want to be held. Harry had been so sweet and cuddly that these pets were just not the same. We went through the store and nothing seemed to be working out. My heart sank. I dreaded taking Dallin home to his misery. I knew I just couldn't stand to see him crying by Harry's grave anymore. We left the store and we started watching the cats playing in the outside window of the store. The cats were expensive and we were on a tight budget with six children. I said a quick silent prayer in my head, “Please Heavenly Father, help me find a way for Dallin to feel better. I just can't stand to see him so sad.” I had just finished this little prayer in my head when a lady with a pet carrier came up to us and asked us if we were thinking about buying a cat. She had in her carrier four baby kittens. We sat down on the floor of the mall outside of the pet store and she let Dallin hold the kittens. One of them quickly climbed in his lap, cuddled up and fell asleep. Dallin and this little kitten both fell in love with each other at that moment and my prayer was answered. The pet store owner at one point came out of the store and said to the lady with the kittens, “You aren't giving those kittens away are you?” because she regularly sold them to him. She told us she wanted the kitten to have a home where it would be loved and she gave it to us for free. This lady and kitten were the answer to a mother's prayer. We took the kitten home and I saw the cloud of sadness lift as Dallin soaked up loving this new pet. He named her Cuddles. Dallin and Cuddles spent a lot of time together and this little kitten would spend a long time just licking Dallin's face and hair every day. They loved each other.

Dallin and Cuddles

Dallin smiling again

Cuddles would lick Dallin for long periods of time

Cuddles grew up and she went on to have two batches of kittens. We also got a lot of fun out of them. I was always touched by Dallin's love for animals.

This cardboard cat was made by Brett. Brett and his friends liked to put it out
in the street to watch cars drive around it thinking it was a real cat
in the dark. This kitten was always inspecting this fake cat.

This kitten loved to do tricks

This is a cat we got from a shelter. It was a cat in bad shape with open
wounds. It followed us around in the animal shelter purring. We just had
to take him home.

This wasn't the only way Dallin showed compassion and love. I will write more in my next chapter. I will forever remember Dallin's love for Harry and Cuddles. It touched my heart.

A few years ago I became friends with a man at church who had had a rough life. He had lived a life addicted to drugs and alcohol and he grew up in a family where everyone fought and hated each other. Now they rarely even saw or spoke to each other. I admired him because of his fight to rise above how he was raised and what had happened to him and for his strong desire to help other people. He wanted to be there for people who had traveled the same road he had. He spent hours trying to help people with drug and alcohol addictions and to find God and come back to church. He was amazing to watch and listen to. Some miracles had brought him back to God and he felt like he owed God something. I will never forget the day he approached me in the hallway at church and said, "I want your family". I was surprised by this and I asked him why. He told me that he had watched us laugh, play and have fun together and he wished he could have had a family like that growing up. He told me he would have traded all he owned for it. I encouraged him to build that kind of life with his wife and children since there was nothing he could do to change his past. While we were talking my two daughters came around the corner with their arms linked together and they were laughing and singing. He pointed to them down the hall and said, "See what I mean. I want your family."

I have thought a lot about this since, about how much I take for granted and what makes me happy. I grew up in a family of eleven children. We are and always have been a very close family. I wanted that for my children. I have been around families that yell and scream at each other and I did not want that for my children. I think I was born without an anger gene. Anger has never made sense to me. I think there is a calm peaceful way to handle everything. After Dallin was born I had six children to watch over and raise. I had a few people at different times tell me that my children would walk all over me because I never yelled at them, that they would not know who was the boss. It was just not who I was. I couldn't be like that. I remember worrying about whether these friends were right, if I was too soft and mellow. Once I was very frustrated with my children and one of them said, "I think Mom is upset and she might actually yell at us." I didn't and I never could. I was more likely to cry than to yell when I got feeling overwhelmed. I was outnumbered 6 to 1 while my husband Winn was at work. I worried a lot over whether I was tough enough. But I started watching my children and how much they loved each other and how peacefully they resolved conflicts and I came to a point where I was glad they never learned yelling and anger from me. They were peaceful, got along great and loved each other. I am now happy I am missing the anger gene. Maybe it is something we learn from our parents. My parents never yelled at me. I didn't yell at my children and I seldom see my children lose their tempers.

Most days I was out-numbered 6 to 1

So here came my sixth child and I got to watch these children of mine learn to love him and each other. There were a lot of times I was touched watching them help, love and look out for each other. Dallin was blessed to be at the end. All of his older brothers and sisters loved to show him things, teach him things and make him laugh. I had gotten my wish to have a family that loved each other. I feel thankful to be living happily ever after and to have the kind of family that other people want.