First Anniversary

Today, it has been one year since I first met my partner, rudder, in person. He came down for the Columbus Day weekend, which in Canada is Thanksgiving. As I write this, he is with his parents in Canada undoubtedly preparing for the big day on Monday and thinking of the tasty treats they will have.

A year can be short when you are in love, and it can be an eternity when love is lost. The last year has been both for me. I met rudder within weeks of my SIR’s death. The past year, has been very much about learning to cope with my MASTER’s death, and at the same time growing the love between my dog and myself.

My MASTER’s name was Craig, and as I mentioned in the previous post, He was the man who I eventually left Jeff for. In June of 2005, I sent him a short note because I thought he was cute, and I didn’t really expect much from it, because I thought he was probably out of my league from his rather woofy picture online. When he wrote back, I was pretty excited, but we only had a short time to talk because I was about to go to the United Kingdom with Jeff, and I figured that after being away for a week or so that contact would probably have fizzled.

I went off to the UK with Jeff. Our base of operations was in London but we toured around a bit as well. I enjoyed the trip, and gained a new appreciation for London, which has never been one of my favorite cities in the world. The trip was fairly focused on things Shakespearean and Marlowian as those were Jeff’s fields of study, so it did afford a new perspective since we did many things that probably would have been rather low on my list. We managed to see Salisbury, Stratford, and Stonehenge (even getting to walk among the stones) during the trip. We also saw numerous shows, since Jeff has a great love of theater and it relates to his profession in arts education. Among the shows we managed to see were Dion Boucicault’s The Shaughraun, Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto at the Royal Opera, and a classical staging of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra at The Globe Theater. We did a lot, saw a lot, and enjoyed a lot but traveling with him also hammered home many of the issues that had been stewing all this time. The trip really highlighted our differences, underlined the differences in style that we had in doing things, and the trip felt like a big debt to Jeff.

When I came back, I saw Craig online, and we continued to pursue our chats online. More and more I enjoyed his company, even though I was quite wary of the fact that he was already partnered. My past experience with married men had not been a good one. After law school, I had returned home to live with my mother and had met a man named Ken online. We had gotten to know each other well, and he had offered me to come visit him out in Oregon to go hunting chukar, camping and some play while we were out there. He was a bear who had a wife, and two kids, who assured me that he could pull this off, and I was naïve enough at the time to believe him. Less than a day after I bought the airline tickets, his wife found out, and we had to abort. I never did meet Ken in person, and naturally left him alone after that. To this day, I wonder how he is and how his family has gotten along.

With Craig, though, He assured me that things were o.k. He kept his partner, Mike in the loop, and indeed it seemed to work out rather well. Mike was always a concern for me, as I wanted to be sure that I was not tearing a family apart; The past experience had been plenty enough drama. In truth I do not know what Craig told Mike, but I do know that I was made comfortable enough to feel like I was not going to be the cause of a breakup. Eventually, on Labor Day weekend, I met Craig. I had been on a trip to Washington, DC, and He was returning from a weekend of play at the Delta event. We met at the Maryland House rest stop, I couldn’t keep my paws off of him, and from there on it was really pretty clear he and I really connected and had something worthwhile.

Our relationship lasted a year before He died, but it was a truly wonderful year. There were plenty of troubles to be sure. Craig and Mike were far from rich, and they both had some health issues that would flare up as well. So there were quite a few incidents involving health crises, financial crises, and employment crises, but somehow those all seemed like obstacles that we could overcome together. The more I got to know them, the more it seemed like I had finally found a family to belong to. Mike and Craig, partners, and I as their pup and the third member of their family, along with a shih-tzu named Jazz, a pit bull boxer mix named Molly, a cat named kitty and another cat named Punkin. I know that by the time Craig died, he very much thought of me as his partners as well and an integral part of the family. When SIR died, I was visiting the family regularly, making the three hour trip as often as I could to be with them. The weekends never seemed long enough, and we were looking at how we could be together in the future under one roof as a true family.

Looking back, when I talked to rudder the first time around January of 2006, I had only known Craig about a half of a year. By that time though, I had spent my first Christmas with Mike and Craig, and certainly felt incredibly accepted by both of them. I would easily have felt like many years had already been under our belts. So when rudder and I started talking Craig and I were already rather comfortable with each other and secure in our roles for the most part.

Rudder at the time was in a relationship with another top named Frank. It was his first relationship, but he wasn’t happy in it. His experience was parallel to mine with Jeff in many ways, and the more we talked the more we connected. Eventually, I introduced him to my SIR. I asked Craig if I could have my own pup. He agreed that we could try it out, and with His blessing, I took on an “advisory” role to rudder.

By the time that we met that first time, we had spent a very long time talking to each other, almost daily. That first meeting was wonderful experience for the both of us. Rudder was rather concerned that it was too soon for me to meet him, so short after the death of my MASTER. I am sure that others wondered about my absence from His funeral, and how I may have seemed to treat his death lightly. Nothing can be further from the truth, but I knew from previous experiences with loved ones passing away, I coped best by moving forward. If that meant sticking to my plans to visit a college friend in Texas, and if that meant keeping my plans to meet my pup, that was fine. I needed the distraction to be able to cope with the incredible hurt that SIR’s passing left in my heart.

So, while rudder was hesitant about intruding on my mourning, I am thankful that rudder came. While that first trip was as much about seeing me and soothing his parent’s concerns about traveling with a stranger on our upcoming trip to France, for me, it was also an affirmation that love and life lives on through death.

For all that he is, my dog, my lover, my partner, for all that he does for me, and for all that he puts up with, I can’t say how lucky I am to have a partner like rudder, and how lucky I have had him as a part of my life this past year. With him, the dreams of having a family didn’t die with Craig, and rather than living in the past and with a hole in my heart he has given me a sense of hope for what can be in our future together. For all of that and more, particularly on this anniversary, I have to say thanks to my wonderful pup for being a constant and loyal companion in my life. Rudder, I love ya *ear scritches*.

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Music video for this post:


Michael Ball, Love Changes Everything