“God Dog” not “Guard Dog”
How it all began
It was the illegal u-turn that would change the course of my life forever. I was heading home on Los Angeles’ Pacific Coast Highway after visiting the desolate beach where just six months earlier, I had helped a young woman spread the ashes of her little baby girl along the shore.
Bella Blue, an angel from the start, never actually made it to this world. Her little heart stopped beating in the early morning hours of May 25th, 2001, a month before she was due to take her first breath. The young 23-year old woman riding in the passenger seat with me that day was a lady known to the world as Christina Maria Cerilli. She was my best friend and I affectionately called her, my favorite female in the whole Milky Way.
It was approximately twelve hours earlier that Christina and I first learned of her precious cherub’s fate from a third floor hospital room. In the wee hours of the morning at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, an erry and unforgettable scene would unfold. I recall the nurse telling me; we don’t feel a heart beat, sir. I remember Christina sobbing. I tried to reassure her. It’s no big deal Christina. So what if they can’t hear her heart beat, I’m sure they’ll find it soon.
At the time, I didn't understand. From my recollection, there had been several occasions throughout the previous eight months when Christina had not been able to clearly hear her daughter’s heartbeat. Christina, it’s okay, so they can’t hear he heartbeat right now, I’m sure they will soon. Everything will be fine.
Surrounding Christina’s hospital bed were a cadre of nurses. One of the elderly nurses repeated the news to me. We don’t feel a heart beat, sir. We can’t detect a heartbeat. I looked at Christina who was sobbing; I then looked back at the doctor who moments earlier had joined the nurses at her bedside. All of a sudden, it hit me. I too now understood what they did.
No way! This isn’t happening! No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The birth of Bella Blue was supposed to be the miracle that made everything wrong in Christina’s life, right. She was supposed to be Christina’s “miracle child”. All of the events leading up to that day convinced us that she would be the sliver lining in the thunderstorm of our lives.
Three months into Christina’s pregnancy, we were told by her obstetrician that Bella Blue’s intestines were forming on the outside of her system, instead of the inside. And, that in order for Bella to survive her own birth, she was going to need immediate life saving surgery upon delivery.
Showing tremendous courage and faith, Christina decided in advance that her little girl was going to make it. When she was given the choice to terminate her pregnancy or persevere, she chose the latter. As such, we visited with a handful of prestigious doctors in the Beverly Hills area, something her Blue Cross Insurance gave us the opportunity to do, and all each of them assured us that there was a very good chance Bella would be okay.
I want to keep her. I’m going to keep her, Christina would say with all the determination of a protective mother.
The plan was in motion. Christina’s obstetrician would immediately transport Bella Blue to the surgery room after being born where a specialized surgeon would perform the life saving surgery. We met with all the doctors months beforehand and had confidence in their plan. It was a stressful and nerve wracking countdown to her due date as I did my best to take care of Christina until the big moment arrived.
It didn’t matter to me that Bella Blue wasn’t mine, in my heart Christina always was, and so taking care of her in the same way as if she was carrying my own child was something that came very natural to me.
What happened in that hospital room shortly after we learned of Bella’s fate was sickening and surreal. A heartbroken Christina who was suffering in a lot of physical pain still had to proceed with all the usual pre-birth procedures, just as if she was about to give birth to a healthy normal baby. She was prepped and prepared for delivery, hooked up to an IV to receive the proper fluids, and when the time came, she had to go through all the normal contractions stage. She was even given an epidermal so her cervix would be dilated.
Having to watch her go through all of this, to ultimately give birth to a corpse, was the saddest thing I had ever been a witness to.
Upon hearing the news of her grandchild, Christina’s mother, Linda, flew in from Pennsylvania. Everyone was there. All of us who loved Christina seemed to be in the hospital room that day. We all were witnesses to Christina giving birth to a baby who would not be breathing upon delivery.
Nonetheless, when Bella Blue was finally born in the late afternoon of May 25th, she was beautiful and divine. She looked like a little cherub doll. She was perfect.
God, how I wish we could have breathed life into her.
Our day at the Beach
On the early morning of October 13th, 2001, nearly 5 months after that tragic day in May, Christina called me up and asked me to go with her to the beach. This was to be the first time Christina would go back to the place where months earlier we spread Baby Bella’s ashes.
Under ordinary circumstances, it would be close to impossible to get me out of the house without some kind of advanced notice. However, when I received Christina’s call that morning, much to even my surprise, I agreed.
At the time, I was still in my twenties, and approximately every six months or so I would give myself a gift. Nothing fancy or expensive, not a vacation or even a day at the spa. No, instead, my bi-annual gift was I would allow myself to take a single pill of ecstasy. For me it was like voyaging into Heaven for a few hours. It allowed me to remember the most profound truths about life and embody a state of divine love for about 4 or 5 hours.
Christina, who was the one who introduced me to the magic pill several years earlier, was now the beneficiary from my taking the drug the night before.
Jeff, do you want to come with me to see Bella?
“Sure, why not, everything is wonderful. Yes, I will go with you”
(I guess you could say I was still feeling the after-effects).
Even though I don’t endorse the use of drugs in any way (at the time of this writing I haven’t taken ecstasy in over 5 years), I recall the amazing euphoric effects it had on me. In fact, I loved it so much that my primary intention to the Universe for the last 10 years has been to be able to create a euphoric state like that naturally - without the use of a drug or anything external. This book, my path with my dogs, is the path I have come to believe the Universe has given me to help move me in that direction.
So, there we were, Christina and I, returning home together from the desolate beach where we spread Baby Bella Blue’s ashes when out-of-nowhere she says:
Jeff, now let’s go to Venice Beach.
“Venice Beach? - What? - Now?”
Yeah, now.
“I can’t.”
Why not?
“Because I have a Master Mind Alliance Meeting at 7pm.”
A Mastermind what?
A Master Mind Alliance Meeting was a small group of people, usually about three or four of us, that met every Sunday night a restaurant in Encino called, Jerry’s Famous Deli. We were all there to support each other in setting and achieving goals. I was actually brand new to the group and up until that point had only attended a handful of these dinner meetings. However, that night I was supposed to meet a good friend of mine there, Chana, who was also excited about attending her first meeting. I wanted to keep my commitment to the group and made up my mind that I was going NOT going to miss it.
Not surprisingly, Christina had other ideas. Again Christina persisted and said,
Let’s go to Venice Beach.
Surprisingly, I made a sharp impromptu illegal u-turn in the middle of a narrow winding road.
It was all actually quite interesting. Whereas, a minute earlier I was on track to attend a meeting and talk about how to live life to the fullest, here I was in the present moment living this daring and unpredictable adventure driving to Venice Beach without any rhyme or reason. Was this not better on some level? I recall thinking to myself.
In retrospect, I chalk up my willingness to go to Venice Beach that monring to the pill of ecstasy I took the night before. Not only that, Christina had an amazing way of making me feel like everything I did would be okay when I was with her.
In truth, she could convince me of anything. I didn’t even know how to get to Venice Beach but none of that stuff seemed to matter when I was with Christina. She inherently seemed to know how to guide me towards anything.
Our drive was peaceful and pleasant and you could smell the fresh scent of salt water along the coast. Everything felt just right and without realizing it, I was at peace.
Several minutes went by and I noticed I had to direct my attention to my nose. There was an itch, so I had to scratch. This went one for a few seconds and I guess one might argue that what I was technically doing could be considered “picking my nose”, but I would say I was just scratching it - maybe cleaning it?
Either way, it was all behavior done unconsciously on my part and I soon found myself looking on my car’s dashboard for a piece of paper to deposit my most discovery. With one hand on the steering wheel and my other hand attempting to find a makeshift tissue of some kind, I was finally able to find a business card that someone had given me the day before.
Thank you God for this! I knew I met that person for a reason.
As I rolled down the window to leave a tiny part of me along the 101 highway, out of nowhere, and without warning, I looked up to find us heading directly towards an oncoming car. We were in the wrong lane.
Holy Fucking Shit!
I had the let the car veer to the left as I wasn’t consciously aware of my driving. I quickly swerved the vehicle to the right. Christina and me were immediately jolted to the other side of the car and just in the nick of time to avoid a real head on collision.
WHEW! That was close! Christina said
“That was too close!” I replied
We had literally almost just died. As soon as we knew we were safe, Christina and I looked at each other in sheer amazement. A moment passed and with a devil’s grin, I said,
Christina, could you imagine if we both just died because of a booger?
For the first time that day a smile came across her face. It wasn’t long before we both found ourselves hysterically laughing at the whole thing. The mood in the air grew lighter and within a few minutes we would arrive at our destination.
Brian & Louis
My soul mates from heaven
Venice Beach. It was probably like any other day at the beach for most people there but what unfolded for Christina and I shortly after we arrived mirrored serendipitous events you only would see in a movie.
Before we even had a chance to walk onto the Boardwalk, Christina’s attention was being directed to her right. Without even saying a word to me, she darted off to the place where an adorable little puppy was being held up in the arms of a thirty-something Latino man.
Within a few seconds, this pint size puppy was hard at work profusely licking Christina’s face. It was amazing. This puppy would not stop his licking Christina’s face, almost as if he had just identified his real Mother. I approached Christina and said,
“That’s a really cute dog”.
She pulled me to the side - as if she was about to tell me something that if anyone else heard could get us arrested.
You know what kind of dog this is?
“What?”
This is a pit bull.
I guess I was out of the loop. A pit bull? What does that mean?
These dogs are used for fighting, she whispered.
I still didn’t get it. Then, before we knew it, the Latino man said to us with just a little too much confidence that a sale was about to be made,
If you like him, you’ll also like his brother.
His brother? He has a brother? A second Latino man then walked over to us with an identical sized dog. Oh my god, they looked like twins, I thought to myself. Then, from out of his mouth came the words that I will never forget.
Yeah, they will make great guard dogs.
“Guard dogs?”
What the fuck did he just say? Guard dogs?
I was dumbfounded. The image of these two adorable little puppies being destined to a life their living behind a chain link fence on a bed of concrete flashed before my eyes. I looked at Christina and said,
“We have to take them”
She looked at me and said,
Jeff, you can’t, it’s not possible. What about Rebecca?
Rebecca was the cat that I had taken care of since I was eleven years old. She was my pride and joy, my everything. She was sixteen years old and I felt extremely obligated to have her live out her golden years in peace and serenity.
Christina, don’t worry, I’m not going to keep these dogs. I am just going to get them off of these guys so they don’t wind up as guard dogs. We’ll find good homes for them.
Then the more confident one of the two informed us of the price.
They are $100.00 each.
Oh shit, we don’t have that much money, I thought to myself.
“How much do we have Christina?”
I only have about 75 dollars, she said.
We told the guy that we would be right back and walked to our car to see how much money we could come up with together. It turned out to be a grand total of $125. We came back to the scene where the two men were holding the puppies. We put on our best “poor me” voices and explained to me that although we wanted them both, we only had $125.
There was silence. One man looked to the other, and then pensively down to his right. Destiny was in the balance.
Okay, fine. At least you guys seem like you’ll give them a good home.
Christina and I were very relieved. Even though neither one of us were planning on keeping them, in our minds, we knew we had just done a good deed.
How it all began
It was the illegal u-turn that would change the course of my life forever. I was heading home on Los Angeles’ Pacific Coast Highway after visiting the desolate beach where just six months earlier, I had helped a young woman spread the ashes of her little baby girl along the shore.
Bella Blue, an angel from the start, never actually made it to this world. Her little heart stopped beating in the early morning hours of May 25th, 2001, a month before she was due to take her first breath. The young 23-year old woman riding in the passenger seat with me that day was a lady known to the world as Christina Maria Cerilli. She was my best friend and I affectionately called her, my favorite female in the whole Milky Way.
It was approximately twelve hours earlier that Christina and I first learned of her precious cherub’s fate from a third floor hospital room. In the wee hours of the morning at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, an erry and unforgettable scene would unfold. I recall the nurse telling me; we don’t feel a heart beat, sir. I remember Christina sobbing. I tried to reassure her. It’s no big deal Christina. So what if they can’t hear her heart beat, I’m sure they’ll find it soon.
At the time, I didn't understand. From my recollection, there had been several occasions throughout the previous eight months when Christina had not been able to clearly hear her daughter’s heartbeat. Christina, it’s okay, so they can’t hear he heartbeat right now, I’m sure they will soon. Everything will be fine.
Surrounding Christina’s hospital bed were a cadre of nurses. One of the elderly nurses repeated the news to me. We don’t feel a heart beat, sir. We can’t detect a heartbeat. I looked at Christina who was sobbing; I then looked back at the doctor who moments earlier had joined the nurses at her bedside. All of a sudden, it hit me. I too now understood what they did.
No way! This isn’t happening! No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The birth of Bella Blue was supposed to be the miracle that made everything wrong in Christina’s life, right. She was supposed to be Christina’s “miracle child”. All of the events leading up to that day convinced us that she would be the sliver lining in the thunderstorm of our lives.
Three months into Christina’s pregnancy, we were told by her obstetrician that Bella Blue’s intestines were forming on the outside of her system, instead of the inside. And, that in order for Bella to survive her own birth, she was going to need immediate life saving surgery upon delivery.
Showing tremendous courage and faith, Christina decided in advance that her little girl was going to make it. When she was given the choice to terminate her pregnancy or persevere, she chose the latter. As such, we visited with a handful of prestigious doctors in the Beverly Hills area, something her Blue Cross Insurance gave us the opportunity to do, and all each of them assured us that there was a very good chance Bella would be okay.
I want to keep her. I’m going to keep her, Christina would say with all the determination of a protective mother.
The plan was in motion. Christina’s obstetrician would immediately transport Bella Blue to the surgery room after being born where a specialized surgeon would perform the life saving surgery. We met with all the doctors months beforehand and had confidence in their plan. It was a stressful and nerve wracking countdown to her due date as I did my best to take care of Christina until the big moment arrived.
It didn’t matter to me that Bella Blue wasn’t mine, in my heart Christina always was, and so taking care of her in the same way as if she was carrying my own child was something that came very natural to me.
What happened in that hospital room shortly after we learned of Bella’s fate was sickening and surreal. A heartbroken Christina who was suffering in a lot of physical pain still had to proceed with all the usual pre-birth procedures, just as if she was about to give birth to a healthy normal baby. She was prepped and prepared for delivery, hooked up to an IV to receive the proper fluids, and when the time came, she had to go through all the normal contractions stage. She was even given an epidermal so her cervix would be dilated.
Having to watch her go through all of this, to ultimately give birth to a corpse, was the saddest thing I had ever been a witness to.
Upon hearing the news of her grandchild, Christina’s mother, Linda, flew in from Pennsylvania. Everyone was there. All of us who loved Christina seemed to be in the hospital room that day. We all were witnesses to Christina giving birth to a baby who would not be breathing upon delivery.
Nonetheless, when Bella Blue was finally born in the late afternoon of May 25th, she was beautiful and divine. She looked like a little cherub doll. She was perfect.
God, how I wish we could have breathed life into her.
Our day at the Beach
On the early morning of October 13th, 2001, nearly 5 months after that tragic day in May, Christina called me up and asked me to go with her to the beach. This was to be the first time Christina would go back to the place where months earlier we spread Baby Bella’s ashes.
Under ordinary circumstances, it would be close to impossible to get me out of the house without some kind of advanced notice. However, when I received Christina’s call that morning, much to even my surprise, I agreed.
At the time, I was still in my twenties, and approximately every six months or so I would give myself a gift. Nothing fancy or expensive, not a vacation or even a day at the spa. No, instead, my bi-annual gift was I would allow myself to take a single pill of ecstasy. For me it was like voyaging into Heaven for a few hours. It allowed me to remember the most profound truths about life and embody a state of divine love for about 4 or 5 hours.
Christina, who was the one who introduced me to the magic pill several years earlier, was now the beneficiary from my taking the drug the night before.
Jeff, do you want to come with me to see Bella?
“Sure, why not, everything is wonderful. Yes, I will go with you”
(I guess you could say I was still feeling the after-effects).
Even though I don’t endorse the use of drugs in any way (at the time of this writing I haven’t taken ecstasy in over 5 years), I recall the amazing euphoric effects it had on me. In fact, I loved it so much that my primary intention to the Universe for the last 10 years has been to be able to create a euphoric state like that naturally - without the use of a drug or anything external. This book, my path with my dogs, is the path I have come to believe the Universe has given me to help move me in that direction.
So, there we were, Christina and I, returning home together from the desolate beach where we spread Baby Bella Blue’s ashes when out-of-nowhere she says:
Jeff, now let’s go to Venice Beach.
“Venice Beach? - What? - Now?”
Yeah, now.
“I can’t.”
Why not?
“Because I have a Master Mind Alliance Meeting at 7pm.”
A Mastermind what?
A Master Mind Alliance Meeting was a small group of people, usually about three or four of us, that met every Sunday night a restaurant in Encino called, Jerry’s Famous Deli. We were all there to support each other in setting and achieving goals. I was actually brand new to the group and up until that point had only attended a handful of these dinner meetings. However, that night I was supposed to meet a good friend of mine there, Chana, who was also excited about attending her first meeting. I wanted to keep my commitment to the group and made up my mind that I was going NOT going to miss it.
Not surprisingly, Christina had other ideas. Again Christina persisted and said,
Let’s go to Venice Beach.
Surprisingly, I made a sharp impromptu illegal u-turn in the middle of a narrow winding road.
It was all actually quite interesting. Whereas, a minute earlier I was on track to attend a meeting and talk about how to live life to the fullest, here I was in the present moment living this daring and unpredictable adventure driving to Venice Beach without any rhyme or reason. Was this not better on some level? I recall thinking to myself.
In retrospect, I chalk up my willingness to go to Venice Beach that monring to the pill of ecstasy I took the night before. Not only that, Christina had an amazing way of making me feel like everything I did would be okay when I was with her.
In truth, she could convince me of anything. I didn’t even know how to get to Venice Beach but none of that stuff seemed to matter when I was with Christina. She inherently seemed to know how to guide me towards anything.
Our drive was peaceful and pleasant and you could smell the fresh scent of salt water along the coast. Everything felt just right and without realizing it, I was at peace.
Several minutes went by and I noticed I had to direct my attention to my nose. There was an itch, so I had to scratch. This went one for a few seconds and I guess one might argue that what I was technically doing could be considered “picking my nose”, but I would say I was just scratching it - maybe cleaning it?
Either way, it was all behavior done unconsciously on my part and I soon found myself looking on my car’s dashboard for a piece of paper to deposit my most discovery. With one hand on the steering wheel and my other hand attempting to find a makeshift tissue of some kind, I was finally able to find a business card that someone had given me the day before.
Thank you God for this! I knew I met that person for a reason.
As I rolled down the window to leave a tiny part of me along the 101 highway, out of nowhere, and without warning, I looked up to find us heading directly towards an oncoming car. We were in the wrong lane.
Holy Fucking Shit!
I had the let the car veer to the left as I wasn’t consciously aware of my driving. I quickly swerved the vehicle to the right. Christina and me were immediately jolted to the other side of the car and just in the nick of time to avoid a real head on collision.
WHEW! That was close! Christina said
“That was too close!” I replied
We had literally almost just died. As soon as we knew we were safe, Christina and I looked at each other in sheer amazement. A moment passed and with a devil’s grin, I said,
Christina, could you imagine if we both just died because of a booger?
For the first time that day a smile came across her face. It wasn’t long before we both found ourselves hysterically laughing at the whole thing. The mood in the air grew lighter and within a few minutes we would arrive at our destination.
Brian & Louis
My soul mates from heaven
Venice Beach. It was probably like any other day at the beach for most people there but what unfolded for Christina and I shortly after we arrived mirrored serendipitous events you only would see in a movie.
Before we even had a chance to walk onto the Boardwalk, Christina’s attention was being directed to her right. Without even saying a word to me, she darted off to the place where an adorable little puppy was being held up in the arms of a thirty-something Latino man.
Within a few seconds, this pint size puppy was hard at work profusely licking Christina’s face. It was amazing. This puppy would not stop his licking Christina’s face, almost as if he had just identified his real Mother. I approached Christina and said,
“That’s a really cute dog”.
She pulled me to the side - as if she was about to tell me something that if anyone else heard could get us arrested.
You know what kind of dog this is?
“What?”
This is a pit bull.
I guess I was out of the loop. A pit bull? What does that mean?
These dogs are used for fighting, she whispered.
I still didn’t get it. Then, before we knew it, the Latino man said to us with just a little too much confidence that a sale was about to be made,
If you like him, you’ll also like his brother.
His brother? He has a brother? A second Latino man then walked over to us with an identical sized dog. Oh my god, they looked like twins, I thought to myself. Then, from out of his mouth came the words that I will never forget.
Yeah, they will make great guard dogs.
“Guard dogs?”
What the fuck did he just say? Guard dogs?
I was dumbfounded. The image of these two adorable little puppies being destined to a life their living behind a chain link fence on a bed of concrete flashed before my eyes. I looked at Christina and said,
“We have to take them”
She looked at me and said,
Jeff, you can’t, it’s not possible. What about Rebecca?
Rebecca was the cat that I had taken care of since I was eleven years old. She was my pride and joy, my everything. She was sixteen years old and I felt extremely obligated to have her live out her golden years in peace and serenity.
Christina, don’t worry, I’m not going to keep these dogs. I am just going to get them off of these guys so they don’t wind up as guard dogs. We’ll find good homes for them.
Then the more confident one of the two informed us of the price.
They are $100.00 each.
Oh shit, we don’t have that much money, I thought to myself.
“How much do we have Christina?”
I only have about 75 dollars, she said.
We told the guy that we would be right back and walked to our car to see how much money we could come up with together. It turned out to be a grand total of $125. We came back to the scene where the two men were holding the puppies. We put on our best “poor me” voices and explained to me that although we wanted them both, we only had $125.
There was silence. One man looked to the other, and then pensively down to his right. Destiny was in the balance.
Okay, fine. At least you guys seem like you’ll give them a good home.
Christina and I were very relieved. Even though neither one of us were planning on keeping them, in our minds, we knew we had just done a good deed.