Jernee Timid Loadholt: The puppy and younger years. Photo Reel Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
it’s still grief
no one prepares you for the ache you’ll feel each time digital “memories” pop into view… the love lost will always be found.
grieving a deceased pet is often frowned upon–not recognized or centered as a genuine loss. and I wonder, how can you categorize death into a hierarchy?
pain is pain is pain is pain.
Have you gotten your copy of Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction at Lulu in E-Book& Paperback versions, or Amazon in Paperback(only) yet?
I am on Substack as well. Poking the Bear’s Belly for Fun is a place of healing, as I discussrecent events related to my previous place of employment, including racism and discrimination, the growth I experienced after resigning from that company, and the foibles and overall experiences of life. I welcome your visit.
Ollie, the perfect Mini GoldenDoodle. I visited my friend/co-worker in the country (Dobson, NC, about 45 minutes away from me) on Saturday, November 29, 2025. I had a BALL! Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Lily (or as I call her, “Lily Girl.”), a Red Golden Retriever. She and Ollie are Niece and Uncle. LOL! Lily is my friend’s dog, and Ollie is my friend’s parents’ dog. I kept thinking about how Jernee would have had a great time with them, simply lying in the grass and enjoying the sun. Saturday, November 29, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
I swear, this could be the corn field from Children of the Corn. I mean, when you’re in the country, you take photos of corn fields. You just do. LOL! Saturday, November 29, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
My Snoopy sweater, because YAAAASSSS!!! It made everyone who saw me that day smile. Saturday, November 29, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Pond #1 along the walking trail at work. Wednesday, December 03, 2025. Pnoto Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Pond #2 along the walking trail at work. Wednesday, December 03, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Thursday, December 04, 2025, chilling in my dentist’s office, in the waiting area. My dental hygienist, while cleaning my teeth, kept saying, “Your teeth are just so clean, Tre. Goodness! They’re so clean.” Every time I go there, they compliment me on my smile and my teeth. My mouth is actually featured in photos on their website. Lawd, help. I’m particular about my oral hygiene. I’m SUPER DUPER anal retentive. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Christmas Decorations at the dentist’s office. I just love their little tree. Thursday, December 04, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
In between exams at my Optometrist/Cornea specialist’s office. For those of you who do not know, I have an eye disease called keratoconus, and I am monitored twice per year to continue to keep surgery at bay. GOOD NEWS! The eyes are the same; no changes, and there’s no need for surgery at this time. The hoodie is an item created by Ernio Hernandez, a dope artist & writer, who is in a class all by himself. Dude is out in left field with his art, and I love it! Thursday, December 04, 2025. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
Have you gotten your copy of Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction at Lulu in E-Book& Paperback versions, or Amazon in Paperback(only) yet?
I am on Substack as well. Poking the Bear’s Belly for Fun is a place of healing as I speak aboutrecent events with a previous place of employment, as it pertains to racism and discrimination, growth from the transition after resigning from that company, and life’s foibles and overall experiences. I welcome your visit.
The cover (front and back) for Scattered Words: Poems for Jernee Timid Loadholt. Photo Collage Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
4 sections. 24 poems. 9 original photos (digitally animated by Google Gemini). 40 pages. 1 dog who is no longer with us.
The tentative publishing date is January 12, 2026, four months after Jernee’s passing.
In Scattered Words: Poems for Jernee Timid Loadholt, the author wants you, the reader, to experience Jernee in totality, and understand why she has lost the greatest companion she has ever known.
If you have ever grieved the loss of a pet, many of these poems will not only resonate with you, they will set up holding spaces in your mind, crawl into your heart, and retreat only when they have been commanded to do so.
You will laugh, cry, nod in agreement, and reminisce about your furry family member(s) and how they have become your strength. Grief is not linear, and every creeping moment it decides to invade your heart, there is a poem in this book to greet it.
In Scattered Words…, Tremaine celebrated, lamented, grieved, loved, and released Jernee Timid Loadholt. Every day, she will probably do these things again—not necessarily in that order.
If you have never met a dog who had the uncanny ability to be more memorable than some of the people you know, with this book of poems, you will have your chance.
God gifted me peace in living form, and I will never forget her, not ever.
Have you gotten your copy of Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction at Lulu in E-Book& Paperback versions, or Amazon in Paperback(only) yet?
I am on Substack as well. Poking the Bear’s Belly for Fun is a place of healing as I speak aboutrecent events with a previous place of employment, as it pertains to racism and discrimination, growth from the transition after resigning from that company, and life’s foibles and overall experiences. I welcome your visit.
The image above is from Getty Images. It is a vintage photo of a young boy sitting at a table and looking mischievously at a whole turkey on a platter garnished with lettuce and tomatoes. The boy wears a suit jacket, dress shirt and tie, and his hands are folded and placed on the table. An empty dinner plate, a smaller plate with a dinner roll on it, and a full glass of milk are in front of him.
Bruce Dennis is getting so far up that the girls wail out to her, pleading for her to get back down to safety. The poor cat sits unbothered, still attached to ten red heart-shaped balloons, drifting by a will not of her own. They stomp their feet and cry out with impatience. Kinley Chris shouts downstairs to their grandmother—screaming for her help—begging her with plump tears in her eyes for her to do something.
“Grandma! Bruce Dennis is flyin’ up more and more. We need to get her down! Grandma, please!”
But their grandmother was in the very place she was before all the commotion began. The girls have no idea she is the one who hitched Bruce Dennis to the balloons—swatting the cat away for breaking her favorite vase. She had said so many times before her art room was off limits. She is going to show them better than she can tell them. But before she would wiggle her overgrown self from the vintage loveseat perfectly placed next to the only window in the art room, their young ginger-haired neighbor, Charlie Rhett Baylor, raps at their door.
“Kinley and Wayne!!! I see Brucie up in the sky. What is goin’ on, y’all?!” In between his yelling, there were frantic knocks at the door. Charlie is also thinking of a way to get the fat cat down while he continues to knock and yell. His father, Hank Baylor, is the Deputy Sheriff in town, so Charlie has a few tricks up his sleeve that will surely secure the fat cat soundly.
Wayne Donald shoots down the stairs quicker than an incoming evening tide and swings the door open. She notices Charlie’s Sunday Best attire, then waves for him to enter their home. Kinley Chris strips the bedding off the guest room’s twin mattress and tosses it out the window. She is thinking they can shoot the balloons one by one with her slingshot or BB gun, and get Bruce Dennis to land on the mattress, but they have to be quick. When Charlie meets her in the guest room, she rattles off her plan to him, and he throws his suit jacket on the box spring, kicks off his loafers, and races back downstairs so he can place the mattress in the spot where Bruce Dennis would land.
Kinley Chris loads the BB gun with .177 caliber pellets, flings the gun over her shoulder, and sets up shop right in front of the old window. Like a focused sniper, the eldest sibling tilts her head to find the subject, braces her legs for shifting, and kneels down in an experienced shooter’s position. She yells down to Charlie, who is in a frenzied state, trying to track Bruce Dennis’ landing position.
“Charlie Rhett Baylor, you gotta good eye on Brucie? I ain’t aimin’ to kill my cat when she falls, so you besta be movin’ that mattress in the right direction!”
“Yeah, I’m watchin’! I’m watichin’ ya, Kinley. You just let those bbs rip, and my eyes will be on the fat cat prize.”
Kinley Chris launches the first three pellets with vigor and swift calculation. Two more pellets follow, and Charlie is monitoring every hit and is maneuvering the mattress as if his life depends on it. Kinley Chris launches two more pellets, and Wayne Donald wails in exclamation—deathly afraid of a negative outcome.
Just before Kinley lets the last three pellets fly, Bruce Dennis is falling down at a pace none of them expects, and Charlie has his eyes on her—keenly assessing the situation as every second passes.
“I’m lettin’ these last three rip, Charlie! Make sure that mattress is placed right. Looks like Bruce Dennis is comin’ right at ya!” Each pellet hits its respective target, and the fat cat meows loud enough for the whole block to hear. She lands with a pounding thud on the mattress on her eight-lives-left paws and quickly runs toward the shed behind the house.
“Wayne Donald!” Kinley Chris turns to her sister to give the final instructions. “You go on to that shed and make sure she ain’t got no bruises or nothin’ like that, and take her a fresh bowl of milk and open a can of that good tuna for her, too.”
Charlie waits until he sees Wayne Donald, then hurries up the stairs to grab his suit jacket and loafers. His day of helping the neighbors is over, and now he has a story to tell his highly decorated Deputy Sheriff of a father.
Bruce Dennis won’t even look in the art room’s direction. She will never trust the girls’ grandmother again.
A cartoonized version of Jernee Timid, derived from an original photo I took of her several years ago. Google Gemini is the AI tool I used to convert the image.
Just after work yesterday, I took the body to a place we enjoyed for months—our sister imaging center, to visit with previous co-workers and staff there. My friend’s mother—eager to see my smiling face, and offer a hug that said to me, “You may not be mine, but you are mine,” awakened my heart’s pain.
The elders, as they often do, check on us when we need it most. The way she tilted her head and asked, “How are you doing?” could not have prepared me for what would take place next. I knew what she meant. I knew how she meant it. And when your name fell from her lips, the tears fell from my eyes.
I apologized as I am wont to do when my emotions take over, and she held up her hand to me and shook her head No… ”I asked you. I want to know. Don’t you dare apologize for feeling, Tre.” And I heard the bass in her voice, attempted to tighten up, but also loosen up, too.
It’s still unreal talking about you and not coming home to you. There are far too many reminders, and so many people who knew you. Everywhere I turn, sadness is waiting to string me along. I hate that this is now what clutters my heart—that I have made space for pain of this magnitude, and it shifts only when it is good and ready.
At the mention of your name, I become puddles that plough through the depths of powerful grief—I wade accordingly, searching for a shore that will envelop me and keep me safe. I can no longer run to you for a sense of security. You don’t crawl into my lap for warmth or stand at the entrance of our bedroom, waiting for me to exit.
You’re in so many places that make up who I am, and erasing you was never a plan—but keeping you in all those spaces is running over me. And if I can be completely honest with you, I did not prepare for you to live and die, and live again.
And for me to live and die, and try to live again.
Photo by Reba Spike on Unsplash. The image depicts a fluffy tabby cat floating through the air. It appears the cat is suspended in midair by ten red heart-shaped foil helium balloons, the strings of which can be seen near his midsection. The sky in the background is a deep blue, with clouds scattered throughout.
“Kinley Chris, you see that fat cat anywhere down there? Grandma said it rushed outta the art room after knockin’ over her famous vase, and now I can’t find it nowheres!”
Wayne Donald shouts from the top of their ancient staircase down to her sister near the basement. She is standing on her tiptoes with her right hand on her hip, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet.
“Wayne Donald, girl, you better stop that yellin’ at the top of them stairs like that before Grandma come huntin’ for ya. I don’t see that fat cat down here, and it shouldn’t come this far anyway. Check the bedrooms and then the two guest bathrooms. It’ll probably pop up again when it’s supper time.
Wayne Donald searches each guest bathroom, bedroom, and then circles back around to the staircase, wandering down the hall toward their grandmother’s bedroom. With each step, she grows curiously curiouser as to where their tabby could be.
“Bruce Dennis! You fat cat, where are ya? BRUCE D-E-N-N-I-S!!! Where are ya, Bruce Dennis?”
Just like the girls, their fluffy and pleasantly plump tabby cat is double-named with what most people would consider a name fit for a man; however, the cat is female. On a somber and stormy night, the cat, who was then a kitten, found its way to their front door. The girls heard something scratching at it lightly. They begged their grandmother to walk to the door with them to see who it could be. When they peeled back the squeaky door, to their surprise, the kitten sat there with the most pitiful look on its face. The girls pleaded to keep it, and their grandmother approved.
They screamed names back and forth until finally, Kinley Chris chose the name Bruce, and Wayne Donald selected Dennis. Their grandmother nodded and tutted them with her hand to get the girls out of her hair. Bruce Dennis had become a part of their family.
“Bruce Dennis! Brucie! Where is that cat?”
Wayne Donald walked deeper into the bowels of her grandmother’s bedroom and slowly approached the old window. Upon looking outside, she gasped. Hanging at least 450 feet in the air was Bruce Dennis, tied to a bundle of red balloons. Wayne Donald almost fainted.
“Kinley Chris! Get up here right now! I say, get on up here!” She took a moment to breathe and then scolded Bruce Dennis for being outside. “Bruce Dennis! Now, how in God’s holy name did you get out there? Where’d you get them balloons?! KINLEY CHRIS!!! I SAY, GET UP HERE NOW!”
Kinely Chris raced up the stairs, taking them by two, and ran to their grandmother’s bedroom. If she had been any faster, smoke would be at her heels.
“Wayne Donald, I declare, you’d better have somethin’ serious for me callin’ my name like you The Law.” Wayne Donald looked at her big sister, her big come-hither eyes stretching wide as the Nile River. She huffed and pointed to the window.
“Kinley Chris, you just go on and look out that there window. You just look. Bruce Dennis is floatin’ up toward heaven.”
“Bruce Dennis is doing WHAT?!”
The girls stood at the window, both of them flabbergasted by the scene before them, and shocked at just how peaceful their fat cat appeared. They looked at each other and within seconds knew exactly what to do…
“GRANDMA, BRUCE DENNIS IS ALL RED BALLOONED OUT AND IS ON HER WAY UP TO HEAVEN!”
Their grandmother sat peacefully in her art room, playing her jazz records and tapping her feet. She tutted the girls silently to herself and shooed their summoning with her hand.
A Cornered Gurl 
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