This is Girl Person. I did not want to write a blog today. For fifteen years, I have written through almost everything. Through happiness and fear, adventures and endings, losing Digby, losing Brickle, moving across an ocean and living on the side of this mountain wondering more times than I can count what in the world we were doing. But today, I did not think I could write. My best friend Lin died. It was sudden. It was unexpected. And I am devastated.
For the last five years, there was one thing I could count on almost as surely as the sun coming up: my phone would light up with Lin’s name. Not once a day. Usually at least three times. Sometimes more. She checked on me. She listened to me. She encouraged me. She let me complain and cry and worry and dream. She reminded me to keep going when I had absolutely no idea how to do that. And if this blog was even an hour late, I knew what was coming: “Are you ok?” That was Lin. Somehow, because of her, I could sit on the side of a mountain in a different country and not feel quite so alone.
There are people who tell you they are there for you, and then there are the people who actually are. Lin always told me she would do whatever she could to help me. And she did. Every single time. She helped me through losing Digby. She helped me through losing Brickle. She helped me through the days when I didn’t think I could keep 2 Traveling Dogs going. I truly don’t know if 2 Traveling Dogs would still exist without her. When Digby died, a piece of this stopped making sense to me.
When Brickle died, I didn’t know how I was supposed to keep doing what we had always done without him. Lin reminded me why. Sometimes because she believed in what we were doing, sometimes because animals still needed us, and sometimes simply because she reminded me that she needed me.
And I need everyone in the 2 Traveling Dogs family to understand something today: you do that too. You may never know what your comment does on a day when I am ready to give up. You may not know what sharing one of our rescue dogs means when I am wondering whether anyone is still listening.
My dogs knew Lin even though we never met her in person. They knew her name. They knew the person on the other side of that phone who celebrated them, worried about them and loved them. Fruitycake called her Aunt Lin because that is exactly what she was.
Family doesn’t always require standing in the same room together. Sometimes love travels thousands of miles just fine. Lin loved music, really loved music, and Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac were part of the soundtrack of her life. Led Zeppelin sang, “The song remains the same.” The song doesn’t feel the same today. How could it? Someone who was part of the rhythm of every single day is suddenly missing. But perhaps the song remaining doesn’t mean nothing changes. Maybe it means that what someone gave us becomes part of the music we carry forward.
Fleetwood Mac sang, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.” Those words hurt today because Lin’s last words to me were about tomorrow. Our last conversation ended the way thousands of ordinary conversations end. I told her I loved her and asked her to keep me updated. She answered, “Thank you.” Then, “Love you too.” And finally, “Talk more tomorrow.” There was supposed to be a tomorrow. I cannot stop thinking about that. Today there isn’t another text from Lin asking me why the blog is late, and I would give almost anything to see her name light up my phone and those familiar words: “Are you ok?” No, Lin. I’m not. But I wrote the blog. Because you would have expected me to. And somehow, one more time, you kept 2 Traveling Dogs going.
People say that people come into our lives for a season or a reason. I don’t know that every loss needs a reason. I don’t need to find a reason Lin died. I don’t want one. I only know there was a reason she was in my life, and I will be grateful for that reason for the rest of mine. Fleetwood Mac also sang, “Go your own way.” Maybe I have to now. Not because I want to go without her and certainly not because I know the way, but because Lin spent five years helping me find the strength to keep walking it.
Lin was a quirky girl who loved rabbits and her friends even more. Her lifelong friend Debs had passed away a few years ago and she missed her and talked about how I had to keep going. Because she couldn’t lose me too. Now, I’ve lost her.
And there is something I desperately wish I could text her today. We got an offer on the rustico. There was almost nothing Lin wanted more than for us to get through this and come home. We don’t know yet whether all of the papers will go through. An offer isn’t a closing, and there are still documents, decisions and things outside our control. But it is a start. And today I choose to see that start as one of the first ways I can honor Lin. If we leave this mountain, she is coming with us. She will be in every shelter we walk into, every dog we help someone notice, every story we tell and everything we build with This Is…Me. She will be in every Fruitycake story I somehow find the strength to write and in the music turned up too loudly in the car. She will be there on the days I want to quit, asking me, “Are you ok?”
I don’t know how to imagine the rest of my life without being able to text my best friend, but I know what I want to do with it. I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to make Lin proud. And I’m asking our entire 2 Traveling Dogs family to help us through this part. Lin taught me that one person consistently showing up can change another person’s entire life. She changed mine. Maybe that is one of the greatest things we can leave behind: we help someone keep going, and because they keep going, they help someone else. Somewhere down that line, a dog gets seen, a shelter gets helped, a person feels less alone or a life changes.
Lin helped keep me going. Now I need all of you to help us keep this going. There are more dogs waiting. There are more stories that deserve to be believed. There is more work to do. And even though today I don’t know how I am going to do it without her, I know exactly what Lin would tell me: keep going. So I will. For Digby. For Brickle. For Fruitycake. For every animal still waiting to be seen. For every person who has helped us get this far. And now, forever, for Lin.
The song may remain, but mine will never sound quite the same again. Still, the show will go on because Lin helped make sure it could. I love you, my friend. Love you too. Talk more tomorrow. I think I always will. ❤️
Rachael, Girl Person
P.S. If you believe in the tomorrow of 2 Traveling Dogs, we need you with us now. Lin believed there was always a tomorrow for this work, even on the days when I couldn’t see it myself, and today I want to keep building that tomorrow for her and for every rescue dog still waiting to be seen. You can join us on Patreon for $5 a month, help us with everyday necessities that allow us to keep doing this work, or sponsor a real rescue dog through This Is…Me for $35, helping us verify that dog’s story and share them with our audience. Every membership, sponsorship, donation, share and person who simply keeps showing up matters more than you may ever know. Lin proved that to me. If you believe there should be a tomorrow for 2 Traveling Dogs, please help us get there. ❤️
Patreon: www.patreon.com/2travelingdogsrescue
This Is…Me rescue dog sponsorship: www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/Q56YEJJTKXY96
Necessities: www.tinyurl.com/2tdnecessities
