The Year of the Dog

When I divorced my children's father, I took the kids, the barest of furnishings, and my dog. I left much behind, including assets. It's the kind of decision most people never understand having to make until they themselves must do it. I was criticized by people close to me for leaving the house, the 401K, the wedding china. I was even asked by the movers if I was sure what I was taking was all I was taking as they loaded up about half the space of a small truck. I was okay, I said. I had my kids and my dog, I said. Friends moved us into my sister's rental home, and we settled in for a new life, my kids and my dog, and we were as okay as we could be, but Buster missed Dakota, as he had spent about a decade with her in our former life.

I culled through the belongings I had and sold many of them on Craigslist or at a garage sale to help pay bills.  I watched shards of that former life go away and pondered both the grief and adventure of it all. I put my daughter in therapy to coach her through shock and change, and braced myself for the rebellion of my youngest, who was too young for therapy. I did not miss the big house nor the man in it. I did not miss the many belongings (except for a pasta bowl set, which I had really liked). And it was ok, because I had my kids... and my dog-- yet he was growing more and more depressed.

Worried Buster would not survive without his mate, I eventually returned him to my children's father. I had volunteered to take Dakota too and care for them both, but it was an all or nothing choice when he refused to let go of her, a choice I could understand. My dog was so suddenly like the baby brought to the court of King Solomon. You know the story-- the mother, out of love and the desire to preserve life, would rather give her child to another than divide and therefore kill. My dog, whom I had adored for all his quirks--who had an obsession for peeing on my ex's belongings, would sleep perched on the pitch of a dog house roof, wore an extremely comedic expression on his wrinkled face, killed a beaver in our backyard and bore the scars, hated snow, and loved to steal my daughter's rag doll-- was no longer mine. Yet unlike the baby that was eventually restored with his birth mother in that old tale, Buster would never be able to come home with me. And I was fine, I said, because I had my kids and I did the right thing for the dog. It gave me comfort to know he was happy with his mate. But two or three years later, Dakota having grown older and passed, Buster died too, and I grieved as though he had been with me all along. By then I had remarried, was caring for my husband's old husky, and had relocated hundreds of miles away. I had never regretted returning Buster to his former home, but his absence loomed larger than ever. While I would swear to my husband that we weren't getting another dog when our husky would pass (her hair, her random shitting about the house), I found myself shopping online in my spare time. I would visit the adoption center on Saturdays. And this Christmas, I found a litter of puppies up for adoption, told the kids I would think about it, and then a month later, after wringing my hands over the impracticality of bringing home a new dog to train, I learned a puppy in that precious litter was still available, and adopted him. It was a hard decision. It was also the right one.

Toby is my dog, a dog that lies in resigned hopelessness when I leave for work in the morning. He functions as a therapy dog for my son, company for my daughter after school, and a sentry to my home. He has been easy to train, sweet, forgiving, and devoted. And he has been excellent company on mornings like this one, when my husband is occupied elsewhere, my kids are gone with their dad for the summer, and I am feeling the absence of my husband's husky, Sydni.

Nearly two weeks ago, we called a mobile veterinarian to help Syd pass from suffering and old age into the great beyond. My husband wrote his ex-wife and his daughters with the news of his decision. In veritable prose, he described Sydni as going to a place where she could again climb fences, chase rabbits, and snatch salmon from wild streams. Like saying goodbye to Buster that first time, I knew then and still know this was the right decision, one that provided relief. But this morning, I thought about her stable, fuzzy presence, the charm of her contented smile when she napped, and her ceaseless giving of her "fur babies," which my kids and I would roll between our fingers when we plucked loose her shedding coat. When I was struggling to adjust to life in a new city in a new family arrangement, I would stroke her and tell her everything I wasn't telling others, and she would silently take it all in, letting me tickle her ears and play with her tail. I can say now though, that I am ok-- that our old husky lived to make sure we would all be okay, and having seen that, and the entry of a new puppy to our home, she was ready to go.

I am a practical person, one for whom there is always, as a college girlfriend once said to me, a means to my madness. I do nothing without a solid reason for doing so. I make careful, well-deliberated decisions. But I am a fool for dogs.

I love dogs. Loved them before I was even allowed or able to have one. I love the furry bodies, wagging tails, and insistent noses. I love that dogs have facial expressions with eyebrows that raise, furrow, relax. I love that dogs are so forgiving and so friendly. I love ears that perk and flop and puppy cankles and toe feathers and drippy jowls. Much to be said for dogs. My husband and I are both aware of the power of a dog, especially dogs that survive the end of your previous relationship, sit with you when you are sick, and  help you in your tasks (chewing on your socks while you are trying to put them on).  We love the heavy sigh the puppy gives when he settles down to sleep, the manner in which he drops his rope toy into our laps for play, or the way he obligingly lets us put his gentle leader on his nose for walks. Oh, much to be said for dogs.

It has been the year of the dog for us, seeing one die peacefully at home, her fuzzy head cradled by my husband, my hand feeling her side rise and fall for that final breath; and for bringing home one mellow, sprawling puppy who thinks playtime is 3:40 in the morning, and who, as he rests at my feet even now, provides a restful, comforting presence, and one of hope. We are going to be okay. We are okay.

For Those Who Grieve

Last night, a friend of the family died after a battle with cancer. The gentleman left behind a wife and children, and many friends. To those grieving, I send my best wishes.

I was climbing into bed at the end of the day when I learned the news with a mixture of sadness and relief. And as I slipped into the temporary slumber of the living, I mused about the strange sort of miracle, an odd word to use, about the moment life ends and death begins. What an amazing thing that can happen that forces to cease the light and energy that keeps us engaged on this plane. While science can pinpoint a last heartbeat, a last brainwave in the dying, no one can tell exactly the millisecond when one's soul drifts from his body, never to return to it.

Recently, I read a beautiful article about a woman with mental retardation--she lived in a state of innocence, a curious blessing that resulted from her condition. As she lay dying, her father's life having ended before her own would, she opened her eyes in her last moments and asked her mother if she could go now because Daddy was coming to get her. There is sweetness in that, a message of relief to the living-- that souls venture forth even before the last breath, that there is hope and promise.

Good-Bye, Buster.

My children's father and I had two dogs together, both of whom I had to reluctantly leave behind when the marriage ended; the dogs, of the "his and her" variety, could not be separated. His old girl had to be put to sleep last year, and this weekend, my dog crossed the rainbow bridge to be with her. The sweetest and saddest moment was my ex's description of how Buster was found--with the family's two-year-old Malamute curled up around him. The two buddies had chosen the shade of a tree we had long ago planted as the place of final rest. As my ex and his family were out of town, the dog sitter lovingly buried my pup where he was found. My ex's words were that the hardship of the dog's passing was its representation of the past--the shared past. I find this kind and sweet, but I buried that notion with the first dog. With this one, I was simply sad that I hadn't been there, that during a recent visit to my former home, I hadn't walked the extra twenty feet to call my old dog one last time.

To Buster, the best "bad dog" there ever was, know that I loved you. I loved you for the way you balanced on the pitch of the dog house roof and slept up there like Snoopy. I loved you for the way you peed on only my ex-husband's things (his car tires, his golf bag, his shirts). I loved you for how you sniffed and snarfed and comically blinked at me, all while wagging your tail and challenging me to a game of chase. You let me play with the wrinkles on your Sharpei face and toy with the slight curl in your tail. I will never forget how when you were a puppy, you would clamp your teeth around Dakota's fluffy tail and drag her backwards around the yard. In my head, I still hold a picture of you gleefully relishing my daughter's old doll, the expression of "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine" in your precious button eyes. Leaving you once was hard enough, but deep in my heart, I know you'll never be gone forever.

My Condolences: Burying a Horse

My husband's supervisor, an exceptionally sweet man, recently had to euthanize and then bury one of his horses. She was a 1200 pound cross-breed of clydesdale, thoroughbred, and quarter horse that he had acquired more as an accidental favor to someone. "She was really cute," he said wistfully, the silence and uneasy shifting in his chair following that statement indicating his sorrow, discomfort, and the momentary need to regroup. "What was so terrible was the ordeal of it all--burying her."

While I don't own a horse and never have, I have certainly been around the barn for enough traumatizing stories. A good friend of mine once had about 13 acres in central Mississippi. She said that they would leave the body out at the end of her land in the woods and let nature take over the work of disposing remains. My husband's boss said he learned next time to walk the animal to the edge of a five foot deep hole where it would be buried, as maneuvering 1200 pounds of lifeless flesh into the truck bed or cradle of a backhoe claw (or whatever had been used) was just enormous quantities of heartbreaking work. Of course, however, there are many times when there is no way to physically prepare ahead of time for the loss.

I cannot imagine having to say goodbye to such an outstanding creature much less having to walk the animal to her final destination, both of us knowing what was to come (and yes, they always know). Being there for the moment when life flickered out of those soulful equine eyes is sorrowful enough. My sincerest condolences to this gentle, gentle man that parted with his lovely creature last week.

Post-Mortem Amusement

My sister called me crying over a certain detail regarding handling her father-in-law’s death. When I heard what the matter was—trying to fit all his ashes into an empty Bacardi box—I started to laugh. I told her that death and funerals foster the best of stories, that she would be amused by this later, and everything would be okay. Fortunately, she ultimately was able to see the humor in trying to squeeze a man into a box the size of a liquor bottle.

A good friend of mine once told me about his father’s passing. My friend and his brother were young folk—maybe nine and eleven. They sat on the bed watching their mother wring her hands and pace about the room in search of “socks that stand up”. She needed to gather the clothes that the funeral home had requested in order to dress the body for the wake. All of a sudden, one of the boys piped up, “But Mom, where Dad is, he doesn’t need socks that stand up.” The mother broke into a fit of laughter and tension ebbed from the room.

At my mother-in-law’s funeral years ago, a wheelchair-bound great aunt had to be carried out of the wake because she would not stop her hysterical crying and yelling. Watching the great aunt flail and sob suddenly struck me as one of those movie-moments where things are so bad, they’re funny. My then-husband had seen a chiropractor for an emergency appointment only an hour or two before the wake because he had pinched a nerve and could not move his neck or bend over--and here we were watching this normally confined woman practically claw her way across the carpet. Something about her uncontrolled expression lifted our mood and we took a deep breath. I waited for the next eyebrow-raising event to happen, but even the fact that someone had worn a prom dress to the funeral seemed to pale next to the memory of the theater-style yelling and carrying on. 

Last week, my sister told me that she found out someone had tried to order barbeque for 80 people (in her name, no less) and have it sent to the funeral home. Last I heard, funerals weren’t the place for a barbeque buffet. I can’t see people sucking ribs next to the casket, can you? As we cackled about other absurdities she was experiencing in her planning of the memorial service, I told her another story:

Once, there was a man who was so devoted to his wealth that he had asked his wife to bury him with his money. When he died, she wrote a check and slipped it into his pocket as his body lay in the casket at the wake. Problem solved. I wonder if the wife laughed about it later. I sure hope so.

Dakota: August 1995-July 2010

The relationship between former spouses is both strange and estranged. My children’s father and I are greatly wary of one another. This man, understandably reluctant to see his children move out of state, played dirty in a most unfortunate way. Instead of being honest, not that any of us expected him to develop that forever-elusive-to-him quality (hence divorce in the first place), he lied about his intentions and actions, dillydallied, sued me, and tried to have me arrested. Things ended fairly well for the children and I, all things considered, but we all bear the marks of the trauma by having a rather cautionary relationship with him. Still, I try to remember he is human. I try to remember that his obnoxiousness and manipulation is a reflection of deeply-rooted anger and insecurity that has never been my job to abate, even though when I lived with him, I thought it was.


This week, broken by new loss, he reached out rather humbly. The dog we raised together, one of two I had to leave behind when we ended our marriage, would have seen her fifteenth birthday this August. Two days ago, Dakota crossed the rainbow bridge in a difficult but loving decision by my ex-husband. We had discussed the symptoms of her impending death and vast discomfort. I had sent all the pictures of the old girl that I had. I then had reminded him that doing the right thing required courage—something I know very well, as the last year of my life required tremendous guts to persist, to fight, and to stand up against him.

I mused this week about the peculiar duality that exists within humans, the ability to hold two opposing sets of feelings, or to think one way and let one’s actions completely override that thought. This man is a difficult man, yet the grief of his losing his dog is a sudden sacred valley, and I was able to counsel him gently. Of course, this was once my dog, too.

I wish I could say that the moment of loss this week would start a new place of peace in our relationship. It will not, however. When the grief for our beloved creature wears to a comfortable memory, he will again find opportunities to express the hostility and desire for control that I experienced for the last several years. I will again have to make hard decisions about how to promote a relationship between him and the children, yet protect them at the same time. He will never see nor understand the effects his behavior has on others. I have accepted this.

In the meantime, our first dog is now gone forever. The night before last, I dreamed about her. We went for walk at the lake near my childhood home. At one point, I went to call Dakota home to me, but she was swimming in cold, extremely choppy, brown waves. I could not enter the water. I knew doing so would endanger me as well and we would both be lost. I stood afraid at the foot of the concrete-stepped wall that separated lake from city, and watched her try to clamor for safety upon a buoy.

Like the marriage I once left, I could not save her.

Bananas, Breasts, and Socks that Stand

This evening a friend called to say she had breast cancer. I felt my breath leave me for a few minutes while she explained the details and then offered a light nod to the situation. She had been complaining to her children that she did not understand how she, of all her family, could get breast cancer when she only had size A breasts.


“With you, Mom, it’s really skin cancer then,” humorously offered one of her daughters.

Humans so amazingly break tension with comedy. Perhaps it is what the Italians refer to as the bittersweetness of life, this ability to find goodness and light in the middle of trauma and hardship. I’ll never forget listening to my grandfather, in his own fight against cancer, rant about lack of potassium. As a grown up, I know now that what he was really yelling about that afternoon twenty-five years ago was not that his doctors were disregarding his body’s need for a particular vitamin, but that he was dying, knew it, and was angry about it.

“What are you going to do if I just pass out, right here, right now, from lack of potassium?” he demanded of my sister and I, the unfortunate witnesses of his tirade. We were no more than twelve and fifteen years old.

“Shove a banana in your mouth?” asked my sister. Silence ensued, and then, in a flood of relief, unexpected laughter.

A close family friend tells this story about his father’s passing when my friend was just a boy. He and his brother were sitting on the edge of the bed, listening to their mother weep and complain. Their father had just died a day earlier and their mother was looking for a pair of socks that would stand up. She was becoming more frantic in her search for appropriate accessories to dress her deceased husband. Suddenly aware that the dead rest horizontally in coffins, my friend said, “But Mom, Dad doesn’t need socks that stand up anymore.” The same response followed, as did in the above two stories: grief broken by laughter.

My girlfriend will survive her cancer. She is one of the lucky ones who was awarded an early diagnosis and a 99% survival rate. I hope her sense of humor guides her through her surgery and treatment. I know she won’t take another day for granted despite the encouraging outcome promised by her doctors. Frankly, thanks to her today, I won’t either.

Best of health everyone, and cheers to your own ability to find a smile in the challenges of your day.

Catiche

Obituary

My mother just sent me a note. A friend and co-worker of hers died yesterday. The woman, who had been suffering from cancer for three years, had written her own obituary in preparation for death.


Life and the end of it comes with touching vulnerability and bittersweetness. An obituary written by the dying is a form of prayer for the living.

There is simply nothing else I can say.

Rabbit Association Suffers Tragic Loss

On occasion, I feel the need to update the general public about the rabbit.


Back in the den with him today (he claims the laundry room in cool weather) we had a discussion about a recent tragedy in the neighborhood. I had discovered that one of his fellow Rabbit Association members died in a reckless attempt to cross the street. Horrified that such a fine beast should be left in a most undignified manner, I pulled the car over, emptied groceries from two bags in the trunk, removed him with the help of the bags, and put him to rest elsewhere.

My own rabbit, wearing his black arm band and sniffing gently with loss, told me there had been a private service, and that there had been much talk of the short lives of city rabbits.

“There is no guarantee,” he said, “of longevity in any case, but the city rabbit faces much adversity in regard to automobile traffic.” He suggested a kind of campaign and asked my help with using the computer to design a flyer. (If you haven’t read Click, Clack, Moo you can do so here, as the local fauna have found this most inspiring: http://pbskids.org/lions/cornerstones/click/story/hypertext/.) I suggested road-caution education classes for little bunnies with refresher lectures for the older set.

He chewed on this briefly, nosed around the cedar chips in his house, and said he would inform me as to the progress of the association. I’ll keep you posted, as I have promised to support his cause with my continued work in the biped arena, but do me a favor. Don’t tell him I had to bag his pal and put him in the garbage can. I can’t afford another set-back in our relationship.