12/16/2021 I’m embarrassed to say that I lost time because I assumed something that wasn’t true, and it dampened my mood, affected my communication with my husband, and made me feel guilty and a little shameful.

I thought for a whole week that my younger daughter was ignoring me. She wasn’t picking up my morning calls and wasn’t texting me back from my many, many messages. I thought she blew me off for the theater and was mad at me. I complained to my husband, and he thought maybe he did something wrong. None of the above.

I admit that, after a few days, I did look at her phone activity on the carrier website, and she was definitely active during that time. I did notice as well that my messages and calls weren’t showing up in the logs. That’s when I decided to email her and ask if she’s even gotten my messages. She responded and said she hasn’t heard from me and didn’t know there was a problem until my husband texted her. So, apparently, the phones weren’t communicating for some reason. Did she block me accidentally or was there some other tech issue?

Nevertheless, I sent her a birthday present and she thanked me immediately. She sent me pictures of a beautiful place she went on her birthday, all as if everything was normal. I treated it like it was normal because I clearly should’ve emailed her sooner or checked in with her boyfriend. Instead, I felt sorry for myself and questioned my parenting and my relationship with her. But nothing had changed.

Yesterday, her boyfriend called me and he was very upset. My daughter came home from work and found her beloved emotional support-companion-best friend dog had been injured very badly. She was covered in blood and slobber and my daughter panicked at the sight. It was definitely a trigger. She called her boyfriend, who reacted to her high emotions and she ended up angry and hung up on him as she rushed her dog to the emergency vet. I called her and she was hysterically crying. I was able to settle her down, and I even called the vet to see about the possible wait time. For non-critical cases, the total time could be 4 to 6 hours, but they’d prioritize her if need be.

I stayed on the phone with her for the whole drive, until she brought her dog inside. Then we spoke a few more times as she waited several hours for news and discharge. Long story short, her dog had bite marks on her neck. It could have been when she was trying to free herself from the gate slat and one of the other dogs was trying to help, or it could have been a dog altercation. Her boyfriend’s dog had some slobber and scrapes on her too, but my daughter’s dog clearly lost the fight considering she had to be sedated while they cleaned her wounds and examined her. The conflict was overwhelming for the young couple and they were both so angry, but he did the right thing and apologized for his reaction.

She was able to work from home today to tend to her dog. Her place of employment loves her and they all know how much her dog means to her. They were very kind.

My daughter really proved how mature she could be. Even in her panic, she leapt into action and got her dog taken care of. If anything had happened to her, my daughter might be suicidal. And I’m not kidding. Thank god (remember, I don’t even believe in god) that her dog is ok, she is calm, her boyfriend apologized, and she’s able to stay at home. That, plus a raise and bonus is a good end to the story. As for me, I’m glad our communication is back to normal so I could be of help to her during a difficult time.