Read My Feelings Episode 4: Reading "A Dog Person" & "Weekends of Sadness" by @shantellewrites

A Dog Person

@shantellewrites Sunday, December 18th, 2022 3 days after my dog was hit by a car and killed.


They say Dog spelled backwards is God, and it’s easy to believe, because my dog has been the truest representation of unconditional love.  A YouTube video[1] grieving the death of your pet taught me that we’re lucky to feel waves of pain. If we felt it all at once, it would be too much to bear. It might kill us. I think about  the old woman that dies shortly after her husband of many years. I think my heart is too empathetic, and at risk of death by grief.

It scared me at first to think I’d be crying a year later for my Jah-baby, because I wanted there to be less pain for someone less than human. Those who know say they’ve sometimes grieved harder for pets than people they knew. I thought my aunt’s death sent me into a spiral of addiction, but my dog’s death made me wonder if I could go on. Oddly enough though, today, before I wrote this blog, I felt the energy to accomplish anything. I felt the need to move in this world without fear of attachment. I can make it through anything if I can lose my Winter.

“Wasting Winter’s Space” is the term my daughter and I agreed on for any interaction not worth our time. There’s not time for people-pleasing, when we are no longer pleased. Winter was a reciprocal people-pleaser. Lauryn Hill sings about love without reciprocity[2], and it’s all too common. Why waste  time for what Winter gave so freely? She licked our tears when we cried. She did not ignore us, judge us, nor question us. She could communicate without words.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” the insensitive text came through. “You couldn’t wait till 5:30 when she got off work?” I could’ve. I tried to–to be a strong and careful mother. But something in me knew that there’s wisdom in dealing with bad news at work; that you have to know how to do that. I also knew that if you’re not a dog person, you wouldn’t anticipate the grief someone would have. If her grief wasn’t tangible, she wouldn’t be able to take time off. Black people must cry, because sometimes not even tears will soften the tough stereotype. Mike Brown, Amadou Diallo, and Sandra Bland were overkilled.[3]

Were black people too strong or too poor or too clean to have pets? Before I was a dog person, I’d scoff out loud, “There are homeless people living on the streets!” About 6 months after I got mine, I went combing the streets of the hood for a stray that I had food for. Puppy-eyes are an in-built weapon. I thought I’d never get another dog, but now I wonder why I’d hold back all this love I have to give. I was a great owner because I loved my dog.

The first day home we stopped at Starbucks and they gave her a Puppacino[4]. She shares eczema, beauty, and lactose intolerance with the other ladies in her family, but I didn’t know that yet. $300 later at the vet that night, and I was ready to keep spending. I’d pay anything to keep her with us, and was saving for anesthesia to get her ears cleaned. When I thought she was still breathing, I would’ve paid anything to stop her pain immediately. The moment I lost her was the moment I lost my suicidal ideations. This is what it feels like to lose the person you love most and I won’t do it to anyone else. I will live to give.

I never beat my dog like I never beat my child. I believed in her intelligence and her need to be free. I didn’t tell her to shut up when she needed to bark. I laughed when she got the speedies. I spayed her because I never wanted her to be raped, or pregnant against her will. I had plans to figure out if she could masturbate somehow lol (not convinced that dolphins are the only organisms that can orgasm). My success was driven by a need to get her a big yard to run freely in. All Dogs go to Heaven[5], and I know I’ll see her run like a greyhound again. She was a friendly, fast, hunting, black lab, and an aggressive, stubborn, loyal pit.

Winter was so free I had to always pull back. My daughter constantly chided me for making excuses for her, but she also knew that I’d parented her the same way. Unlike infuriating blind authority, I always take context into account. But if I knew how, I would’ve trained her better. Though I did know she shouldn’t eat people food, I treated her to the other half of most of my bites.[6] I knew that morning on the day she died that she was too at risk, and I tried to pull her leash extra hard when she got out of hand. The day before, she’d popped her favorite collar to chase the cat. In the morning, I noticed the new collar was a little loose and I regret not adjusting it.

I regret not running as soon as she crossed the road; denying my back issue and shoe choice. I regret not doing my work and waiting the hour until her scheduled walk. I regret thinking of her as a burden that day to traveling freely. I regret yelling at her so hard that morning for peeing in my bed. Right before she was hit, I said she was going to get hit, but I’m not completely sure if it was like what I normally do before an accident. When my car slides on the ice, I slow down and brace for impact. When the car hit Winter, it seemed like it wasn’t moving. It’s slow and happening all at once. Because of my guilt, it hurts me to the core when my mean man says, “You let the pup go.” I deleted his number for disrespecting my family.

I see her getting hit over and over, the way her tongue was bit. I held her in my arms and rocked her till I noticed the pool of blood on the leaves. It was so cold I went and got her blanket. I didn’t want to leave her and I couldn’t imagine putting her in the cold ground. My baby loved to sit directly under the space heater. But my daughter assured me she wasn’t in that body anymore. My mean man told me not to crack up. When he called back, she should be buried. So I got moving on it. I didn’t want my new roommates to think I was cracking up. He started burying her before I came back. Instead of getting mad, I was grateful not to have one more disturbing image in my head.

The next morning I went back with her blanket and I laid on her grave and cried. I pushed a mound of dirt with my cupped palm, as I would do stroking her cheek. My tears made the dirt smooth, and a natural dent for her eye was there. I cried, and sculpted her. I understood Gepetto. I understood God molding Adam. I wished I could breathe the air of life into her, but I knew I couldn’t. Though, when I write, I question my limitations.

I laughed with my daughter and told her I would kick the cat that Winter hated. I knew I wouldn’t, but I still told it “Fuck you!” this morning as a joke to Winter, who’d normally be searching for her at that time. But last night, that wasn’t the case. As I stood over the fire surrounded by friends, who are loving on me at this time—I had the funny thought that if my Winter’s soul came back to help someone (as my daughter suggested)-- she could be in an unlikely body. If this were a Blockbuster movie, she’d show up as something I didn’t like or understand–like Chris Rock as the white man in Down to Earth, or Tom Hanks as a grown man in Big, or the cat Winter hated, right before me.

With that thought, I noticed the cat wasn’t under the firepit stand like usual. Winter would chase her from under there. Instead, she sat to the side like Winter, and with her hind paws in her familiar position. When I reached to stroke her, for the first time she did not run. She let me pet her in the same places Winter loved. She tried to bite me in the same way when I touched unwanted places. Then she sat under my chair, and I knew my Jah-baby had visited.

Last week, when I first arrived at Moor Love Farms[7], I sat down for fire therapy. I told my friend how I’d become a dog person and changed so much. How when I was young I’d gone to Martha’s Vineyard, and the white family I stayed with told me to give my leftover cereal bowl to the dog; then quickly rinsed it off. I reported an old coworker for using the kitchen dishes for her dog. Well, the night before my dog passed, she bit a piece of my apple, and I popped the other half in my mouth.

He told me how he’d also been majorly transformed. He’d been petrified of dogs, but had to live with a friend that had one. Even though I told him my dog didn’t bite, he said he had to slowly test it and find courage from his recent past experience. We decided that night that being a dog person is throwing yourself into something without judgment and changing for the better.

[1] YouTube video

[2] Ex-Factor and lyrics

[3] All 3 incidents same news source

[4] Ask for one lol, article on how to know if dog lactose intolerant?

[5] Saddest movie growing up wanna watch again and Land Before Time, first parent trauma what kids are most afraid of before Lion King

[6] Video dog doesn’t ask for french fry vs my dog could never: What they can and can’t eat goes beyond chocolate. Don’t feed them chicken bones, but beef bones! Extra tidbit to keep the doggies safe.

[7] Ask for permission to print, and to do their website


Weekends of Sadness (Read 2)

@shantellewrites Sunday, April 8th, 2024, While living in Atlanta with my Godmother, she heard me crying one night and came to my  room to ask why. I told her I missed sleeping with my dog, so nights are the hardest. She looked at me incredulously[1] and said she didn’t know black people slept with dogs. I wrote this piece when she took a Sunday off from church and for the first time my weekend was fully free.

I guess weekends are so sad because I don’t have work to distract me. I hate working and spend most of the weekdays procrastinating, but on weekends there’s no fake responsibility to tussle with. There’s nothing I should be doing…And if I’m not doing, then why am I here?

They say to sit in sadness and let it pass, and I never do that. I call someone or binge on shows, but today I made it to the last episode. Yup, the main character died. I was pissed, so after it ended I put a cryptic post on Facebook about how all people who spoil shows should rot in hell. They took away my chance to cry about someone else.

I’m crying for myself now; snot running, fetal positioned on the carpet in front of a space heater. The rain I love pours outside, but I'm not tapping in. It’s kinda cold and I don’t want to fall into the stereotype that it’s gloomy. I would rather the one where you have someone to cuddle with. But I don’t. I’m alone. Even when I’m not, no one has ever cuddled with me in the rain—well maybe, but not more than once. Not anyone I could count on to be there. I feel abandoned, but it all starts with the gut-wrenching cry for my dog.



I started in the wee hours of the morning missing my baby, but then I went to sleep. I woke up and was in good spirits for everyone, but I hit the wall in a conversation with my daughter. She’s gaslighting me again–unintentionally. Right before,I tried to cheer up my mom and realized how awful I was to my mom, which is why she second-guesses her insides. I try not to let my daughter continue the curse. I tell her I have to go, but I’m haunted. I’m trying not to take on anyone else’s pain, but what’s left is my own.

I miss you, my baby. I try to craft a gratitude list in my head, but I pair it to the consequence. I say I’m grateful for the time I spent with you, that you were my shadow, that we ate chicken wings together. That we slept together. I see the good memories, but the sadness twists my words. I say I’m grateful I let you eat people food cuz you weren’t going to be here long. I’m grateful I let you sleep in my bed because you weren’t going to be here long. I say God you know I needed her. I yell at God why did you take her from me?

In my head, I say I never had to deal with the mean people when I could just cuddle with my dog. I always imagine us spooned together as we always were. I fight the real thought of how sad I was when she was here anyway.

Any way to get through this sadness. Naturally, sitting in the pain, I was compelled to turn it into art. To be empowered somehow. So I got up and wrote for people who know weekends can be sad too.

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson, Chapter One (Read 3) Old Yeller (weebly.com)

I guessed maybe Papa was right. I guessed I could use a dog. All the other settlers had dogs. They were big fierce cur dogs that the settlers used for catching hogs and driving cattle and fighting coons out of the cornfields. They kept them as watchdogs against the depredations of loafer wolves, bears, panthers, and raiding Indians. There was no question about it: for the sort of country we lived in, a good dog around the place was sometimes worth more than two or three men. I knew this as well as anybody, because the summer before I’d had a good dog.

His name was Bell. He was nearly as old as I was. We’d had him ever since I could remember. He’d protected me from rattlesnakes and bad hogs while I was little. He’d hunted with me when I was bigger. Once he’d dragged me out of Birdsong Creek when I was about to drown and another time he’d given warning in time to keep some raiding Comanches from stealing and eating our mule, Jumper.

Then he’d had to go act a fool and get himself killed.

It was while Papa and I were cutting wild hay in a little patch of prairie back of the house. A big diamond-back rattler struck at Papa and Papa chopped his head off with one quick lick of his scythe. The head dropped to the ground three or four feet away from the writhing body. It lay there, with the ugly mouth opening and shutting, still trying to bite something.

As smart as Bell was, you’d have thought he’d have better sense than to go up and nuzzle that rattler’s head. But he didn’t, and a second later, he was falling back, howling and slinging his own head till his ears popped. But it was too late then. That snake mouth had snapped shut on his nose, driving the fangs in so deep that it was a full minute before he could sling the bloody head loose.

He died that night, and I cried for a week. Papa tried to make me feel better by promising to get me another dog right away, but I wouldn’t have it. It made me mad just to think about some other dog’s trying to take Bell’s place.

And I still felt the same about it. All I wanted now was a horse.



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