TRIBUTE TO JASMINE
This buddhaful tribute to Jasmine will move you to tears.
Jasmine was an angel on earth. She came into Rann Patterson’s life and brought so much joy that she healed Rann’s broken heart.
But after 18 years of happiness, it was time for precious Jasmine to leave for Heaven. Rann was so devastated that she cried rivers of tears.
When she wrote the touching tribute that you are about to read, she wept again and the sadness was unbearable.
But then, a miracle happened. Her tears stopped flowing and fond memories of Jasmine started to fill her heart with joy.
♥ Dolly the Boston Buddha
“Mine”
In Loving Memory
JASMINE
August 6, 1992 – December 23, 2010
Jasmine, my beautiful white Malti-Poo, is the only thing that I feel like I’ve ever done right. She has been the only thing that I have ever been able to hold on to and call my own. Everything else has just seemed to slip right through my hands. I was never able to have children, never owned a house, nor could I hold on to my two husbands. When I lost my mother, my first marriage, and had cancer for the second time, I knew Jasmine was sent into my life as a gift. I was wounded and lost, and she was the exuberant joy that I needed. I was always the quiet type, which is typical of creative minded people, so this sweet, very social creature rocked my world.
The night I got her, I had intended to buy an aquarium at the local pet shop, but saw her lying in a cage all by herself. She looked lonely and depressed, so I walked over to the glass. For some reason I was drawn to her. As I got closer she looked up at me, and when our eyes met I was smitten. I can’t explain it, but we both fell in love. The clerk let me hold her, and as I held her up to my cheek, her soft fur was pure heaven, and as she felt my love she became alive, her little tail wagging feverishly as she licked my ear and chin! When she came alive, so did I. It was the first feeling of joy I’d had in a very long time.
At home my life changed. No longer working, my days with Jasmine were filled with happiness and laughter. As she grew, she promptly took her place sleeping on the bed, usually right next to my ribs. If I was upset and crying, she would get even closer. It was like if she could have, she would have crawled right inside of me to fix whatever was wrong. She went with me everywhere in the car, and long before I got her car seat she sat in my lap, and if I got frantic in traffic, she would stand up and start licking my chin. She instinctively knew how to calm me down. Going to the groomers was so much fun, but I missed her while she was gone, so picking her up was the highlight of my day, and she would be adorned for the season, in bows or a bandana. She was so cute!
Jasmine was the house welcoming committee, and when I was the one coming in, she would fly up to me jumping up to give me kisses. My brother Phil called it “flying sugar”! It made me feel good to know she missed me that much. She would happily play with her squeak toys, and eventually pull the stuffing out. She did most of my quilts that way, too. She teethed on a wooden table and several books and I lost pairs of house shoes during those first few years, not to mention the unmentionables! Jasmine was built beautifully. She had wide hips and a very flat back which made sitting up and begging a breeze. The first time she did it I was eating a sandwich while watching TV. I felt as though I were being stared at, so I looked down and there she was – paws up in the air not moving anything but her eyeballs! I melted right there on the spot. I laughed out loud, and of course, she got rewarded with a bite of my sandwich! Again, I was never the same. I giggle just thinking about it.
Months turned into years, and with each change Jasmine just took it on the chin. Her personality never wavered, nor was her joy diminished by circumstances. When I had to put my dad in the nursing home, we would visit and I would put Jasmine in his bed and she would start rooting in his covers and it would make him laugh. During difficult times and in so many ways, this joyous creature changed so many of us.
In December 2010, a year ago at 18, blind and deaf, Jasmine had a seizure. While holding her close to comfort her, my heart sank as I pondered my fate. Suddenly, she began licking me on my chin. That’s when I knew it was ok to let her go. She was letting me know, just like she had always done before.
Jasmine…a beautiful mix of Maltese and Poodle, with two black button eyes and nose, and corkscrew curly hair, except for her tail, which most of her happy life flipped joyously over her back. She was an unintended purchase one fateful evening, and born for me, I know.
Sociologists say that owning a dog will add five years to your life. Owning Jasmine saved my life. And although I didn’t realize it at the time, the name I gave her reminds me that she will always be mine.
Thank you, my angel, for your sweet and joyful disposition. Your boundless capacity for choosing happiness has changed my life forever.
Love, Mom
“Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” James 1:17
This is such a beautiful, incredible tribute to a dear, precious friend. It made me and my Mommy cry, weep almost, especially my Mommy. We have that incredible bond, and I too, always knows she needs me. Mommy has also known the loss of such a loving companion, in my sister Morgan, a schnauzer that Mommy shared life with for 15 years. Thank you for sharing this. Going to cuddle with Mommy now.
Oh, Dolly – what a buddhaful twibute you made fur my sisfur Jasmine! When my momma rescued me and brought me home, my wonderful sisfur Jazz took me right in and gave me pawmazing love. She shared her squeak toys wiff me, and since she was blind & couldn’t see, she let me help her, and she told me she was glad I was there. Fank you frum the bottom of my pawheart fur showing the world what a purrfect sisfur I had in my new loving home! I wuv you furrever Dolly.
Dear Dolly, I totally agree with Pixel Blue Eyes who wrote, “A beautiful and incredible tribute to a dear, precious friend”, and I certainly had some tears as well. Maybe God gifted Rann with Jasmine to remind Rann of her own powerful capacity to give and receive love and to nudge her to “choose happiness”. Now Jasmine, Rann’s little angel, is surely with God, and they will be united again someday, for as Rann wrote, she was “born for me”.