Open Hands
Sometimes things come full circle. In stories, some threads are woven into the bigger picture. Details that come up again and again; touchpoints that anchor the wider frame.
I have cancer. That’s the big story in our life right now. In a boots-on-the-ground kind of way, everything falls under the cancer umbrella. If we want to take a trip, I ask myself how this will fit into my upcoming treatment schedule. If we’re setting up a dinner with friends, we determine ahead of time whether it is a dinner where we want to talk about cancer or we don’t, and then communicate that to our dinner companions. If my tummy is unsettled, I remember that even though these drugs are much easier on my body, there are still daily side effects to manage. As I prepared for our beach trip, I realized that while I thought I hated bathing suit shopping before, it was downright dreamy compared to bathing suit shopping post-mastectomy. Cancer becomes an all-day, in-and-out thing.
If you’ve been following along with me on this cancer journey, then you may already know about the dog saga. The dog (or lack of one) has been a thread that was woven into this story at the very beginning, and it has come full circle.
I can’t wait to tell you this story.
If you haven’t read my first cancer blog post and you have no idea what I’m talking about, you will want to stop right here. Stop. Read this before moving on!
-----
In short: the Pattisons couldn’t get a dog. After multiple rejections, I started to wonder: what if God doesn’t want us to have a dog? It felt like a silly question, and yet it nagged me as I continued to power ahead with rescue application after rescue application. Then I found out about my cancer, and suddenly it clicked: we were protected from a burden we didn’t need. We certainly didn’t need a puppy amidst chemo, surgery, and ongoing cancer. My frustration quickly turned into gratitude.
-----
My family had discussed the dog ad nauseam. After none of the rescues worked out, we decided we’d go with a traditional breeder. Everyone but me wanted a Golden Retriever puppy. I was concerned about the size and the shedding. Our house has small, cozy rooms—I wanted a smaller dog that was hypoallergenic and low shedding.
Ty asked me: if I could have any kind of dog, what would it be? I pointed him to my friend Emily’s dogs who are medium-sized, sweetly tempered, low shedding, hypo-allergenic. He reminded me that I had already researched those dogs way back in early spring. There are only two breeders in Tennessee that are accredited breeders and it would cost more than what we wanted to pay. We just couldn’t spend that much on a dog.
So I was outvoted.
I disregarded the nagging whisper to wait; I put a deposit down on a Golden Retriever, which was certainly not going to be cheap, but a bit more in our budget range. It was going to be smaller than the average Golden, but just slightly. Once I paid the deposit, I found out that we were 46th on the list. It would be a long time before we’d have a puppy to call our own.
-----
A few months into our wait, we found out that I have cancer. Everything was put on hold. A new pet was the least of my concerns. We sat all three of the girls down and had to tell them that the dog was on hold. We were so sorry, but we just couldn’t handle a new thing right now.
They were disappointed. Esther and Nell could understand, though. They are teenagers. They understood that a cancer diagnosis would of course put a puppy on hold. Eden, however, had just turned three in July, right before my diagnosis in August. She had her heart set on a dog. She wanted to name it Sparkles. She was heartbroken.
Eden asked me daily when we’d be getting a dog. I tried to think of a marker that would help her comprehend this delayed time frame: Eden, when my hair grows back, we can get our dog, I told her. A few times a week she would run her little toddler hands over my bald head to see if the hair was growing back. Nope. Not yet.
I started chemo in September of 2020 and I didn’t finish until mid-February. Normally, that would mean my hair would start growing back a couple of months after chemo was complete—around March/April. But the most unusual thing happened: my hair started growing back early. Early… in December. A little velvety floor of the softest baby hair you’ve ever felt popped up all over my scalp right smack in the middle of my chemo treatment.
Eden was elated: we could get Sparkles now! I was unnerved: this was not according to plan. The breeder emailed: she would have a puppy ready for us in March if we wanted it. This was too far ahead of schedule for us: I was slated for my double mastectomy in mid-March… not the time to take on a puppy. As I started clicking ahead through the weeks of my calendar and taking surgery, recovery time, and radiation into account, it seemed to me that the earliest we could realistically bring a new animal home would be late May or early June.
The breeder and I went back and forth. She had another litter coming that would be ready to come home in May, but she expected those to be bigger dogs. She could hold one for me but there were significant charges for those services. Suddenly, this dog in our budget was getting to be very, very expensive.
------
One night in February Ty and I sat at the kitchen table after dinner. The big girls had taken Eden up to bathe her (one of the perks of a 10-year gap) and just the two of us connected for a brief moment before we began cleaning.
Ty, we have to decide what we’re going to do about this dog. It’s getting really expensive to have the breeder ‘save’ her for us until I’m finished with radiation.
Didn’t we already put down a deposit? I thought you paid her already.
I did. What if we just cut our losses and move on? Maybe we should try the rescue avenue again.
Sarah, we’ve already done that.
You’re not wrong. I know. (pause) Maybe we need to pray about it.
We’ve already done that, too.
I know. You’re right. I just don’t feel good about where we’re at on this.
We both stood to start cleaning the kitchen. It was a brief conversation with no conclusion. That was the end of that.
------
That was a Monday night. I remember it was Monday because I got up and went to chemo the next day, and Tuesday was chemo day. That particular Monday night, we did pray. We had other things on our list, but I did take time to remind the Lord that we wanted a dog and it needed to be the perfect fit for our family.
It was a brief conversation with no conclusion. That was the end of that.
------
The next morning, I sat in my infusion chair. It was my second to last chemo treatment. The nurses had been having a terrible time accessing my veins, so I was nervous. (You can read a blog about that actual Tuesday morning experience here). Because I was anxious, I tried not to pay attention to the poking of my veins but turned my attention to listen to the people around me.
My friend Debby was next to me, so I chatted with her. Then Margie walked in. I met Margie through the Infusion room. She has breast cancer, too. We text each other occasionally and try to keep up. Margie takes a seat across from us, I introduce her to Debby, and a nurse begins hooking her up pre-meds.
I’m still focused on anything other than my arm and the needles. I overhear Margie and her nurse chatting, and she asks Margie what she does for a living.
I breed dogs, Margie says.
My ears perk up. I lean in.
What kind of dogs? I ask.
Australian Labradoodles, she tells me and goes on to explain that they are medium-sized (25-30 pounds) and historically bred with European breeds which makes for a calm temperament. They are non-shedding and hypo-allergenic.
I ask if she has a picture. She shows me on her phone. And I pause before I ask the next question because it sounds so ridiculous: Do you happen to know my friend, Emily Miller? Because these dogs look just like hers, but she got hers from Chattanooga—
Yes… Margie interjects That’s my friend Brenda. We’re the only two people in Tennessee accredited to breed these dogs. I’ve met Emily before. My dog Finley is the father of her dog, Queenie.
I’m floored by this coincidence. She tells me to go to Facebook and follow her page, Homestead Manor Labradoodles. I grab my phone and look it up. I laugh: I already follow her page. I’ve been following her for over a year without knowing it.
She goes on to tell me that she’s about to take some time off. Chemo is making her sick and so she’s got one more litter coming and she’s going to take a break for a while. I explain about the trials we’ve had finding a dog, and particularly the trouble we’re having getting a puppy to fit into my treatment schedule.
She listens.
Sarah, she responds, You can have a dog. This litter that I have now will be ready to go home in late May or early June. I’ll hold her until you’re ready for her. She’s yours if you’d like her.
-------
The girls and Ty were elated. It turns out that nobody was set on a Golden Retriever, after all. My teenage girls, however, were not keen on naming our dog Sparkles, so we began to pitch out other options. Eden remained firm: the dog would be Sparkles.
My friend Margie called about eight weeks after the litter was born. She was drafting up the paperwork and needed to fill in an official name.
Margie, I asked, would it be okay if we named her after you?
-------
Margie Sparkles came home to our family on May 25th. She is a special kind of joy and delight to us—a beautiful silver lining in the middle of a hard season. She is a daily reminder to let go of my striving and trust that there is a plan better than my own. After all, gifts can only be received by open hands.
