Beyond the Cabinet: Growth Outside the Greenhouse

This was a hard week. But with every hard week, we have a choice: we can let it weaken us and drag us into a place of crushing defeat, or we can step back, breathe, and choose to find a silver lining. Sometimes that silver lining is simply the ability to survive—and survive we will.

I tried to force a plant analogy onto this situation—something about how a seed has to break down for a plant to grow—but I don’t want to force it. My life is more than plants. I’m a parent, a son, I work a day job, and for the last few months, I’ve been tending to a litter of German Shepherd puppies. This week, that part of my life took a heavy blow.

If you know me, you know I want the things around me to flourish. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not the soft, overly mushy type. I’m more of the, “This might hurt, but you’ll be better on the other side, and I’ll be here to remind you that you can do it” type.

I’m not a dog breeder, nor do I want to be. This was a one-time thing, and I went into it knowing that if any puppies didn’t find good homes, they’d stay in the loving home where they were born. I registered the litter through the AKC, stayed on schedule with their shots, helped wean them, and delivered them myself. I even slept on a cot beside them for the first two weeks because mama dog kept bringing them to my bed whenever I left. Needless to say, I unintentionally grew deeply attached.

So, when the pup who looked the most like his dad started acting off this past week, my stomach dropped. I took him to the vet, thinking he had swallowed a squeaky toy, bracing myself for a big bill—until I got a call at the end of the day. There was no toy. He had Parvo.

He had received all his vaccines on schedule, including his latest just two weeks prior, but somehow he caught it. I drove him an hour to a pet emergency hospital late that night. At 4:00 AM, the call came to come back. I took my daughter with me to say goodbye to this little pup that I had delivered, nourished, and loved.

When we walked in, he perked up—giving every last bit of his remaining energy just hearing our voices. Facing the reality that he wasn’t going to make it, I had to make the hardest choice possible to end his suffering. I couldn’t let him leave this world surrounded by strangers when I had been with him every day of his life. I rubbed his head as he went to sleep one last time.

The grief immediately turned to anger and frustration—at the situation, at the helplessness, at doing everything right and still losing him. I’ve spent the last two days bleaching every inch of my room, where the puppies live, hoping and praying the rest of the litter stays safe.

Reflecting on it all now, I know what I want to take away from this. I choose to be thankful that in his short life, that puppy knew nothing but love. He gave us a glimpse of his dad as a pup, and he was cherished every single day he was here.

I started this draft looking for a plant analogy, and maybe it’s just this: The strongest plants do not come from the easiest environments. They come from enduring changes in their surroundings. We aren’t plants that reside in a controlled greenhouse or a plant cabinet, and even when it’s hard, we should be thankful for that. The resilience it takes to survive comes from weathering the storms, not living in a bubble. That cabinet might offer consistency and predictability, but those plants never get to experience the truly beautiful days. The trade-off for having no exceptionally bad seasons is having no exceptionally good ones, either.

Life changes in ways we don’t expect and can’t control, but we can control what we take away from it. Cherish the ones around you because things can change in the blink of an eye. If you have a pet you’ve been taking for granted, call them over and give them some love. If there’s someone in your life you’ve been meaning to reach out to, do it today. Do it for all the souls who wish they had before it was too late. Do it for future you.