Soapbox

As often is the case lately, Tucker woke me this morning with a nose under the blankets a 4:45 AM, hoping for breakfast.
I reached out blearily (hadn’t slept a lot since he got up to pee around 2) and rubbed his head. I opened my mouth to say “Not yet buddy- it’s too early or breakfast” but stopped myself.
Why not?  I said and got up to feed him.
Why not let him eat now, when he’s hungry now? It’s not going to make a difference.

I dropped his pain pill on top of the canned food we’ve been adding to his bowl: half a tablet, twice a day. More might start to hurt his kidneys.
Why not? I asked myself, and put in another piece. Why not give him a little less pain for the day he has left?
Tomorrow I’m going to cook him some bacon for breakfast. I’ve always been careful not to give him too much people food, because it’s not good for his digestion and I don’t want him to put on weight. But why the hell not?

His old buddy Patch came over after lunch. The dogs were clearly happy to see each other. Patch isn’t getting around so well either, and at over 100 lbs, his owner Traci can’t lift and carry him the way we have been helping Tucker. My boy seemed more energetic with his old wrestling partner around and even tried to play a little bit. The heart was willing but the body wasn’t up to it.

Traci hugged him for a long time before they left. “Thanks for being Patch’s friend.” she whispered. “I love you. We’re both going to miss you so much!” She was in tears when she left.
He has slept a lot since then.

The worst is the normal stuff: the way he lifts his head when I walk into the room. When he’s out sniffing dog smells at the corner, when he makes another casual sweep past the food bowl just to make sure nothing tasty got missed the last time he checked. That’s when I second-guess: am I doing this go get out of the inconvenience of having a dog who needs someone with him all the time?

Because let’s face it: we have all made big adjustments, and some sacrifices. Like all the times he was sleeping and I slipped offf to watch TV only to hear his toenails scraping on the kitchen floor and then a thud… and I never got to see the end of that show because, with a big sigh, I had to go pick him up again and sit with him til he fell asleep again.
And all the times when he wanted to go out at 2 AM in the snow, or the rain, and then just stood there, blinking, and there we were in our PJs with a coat thrown on top, hopping up and down and muttering “Come on dog- just pee!”
The places we couldn’t go because someone had to stay home with the dog. It used to be really frustrating. The last few weeks though, as I could see the end getting nearer, I found my patience expanding. One day Ted had to leave or an appointment before I got home from work. I got back as quickly as I could but as soon as I opened the garage door I could hear Tucker crying. He had fallen and couldn’t get up, and waited and waited, and finally started calling for me.
It broke my heart. He doesn’t want to be helpless and a burden.

Sometimes Ted and I would sit together in the dark, just being there, until we could tell he was deeply asleep. Then we’d tiptoe upstairs and I would sleep in my own bed for a few hours… until I heard him walking around in the kitchen- or was tired of waking up to listen, so I just went to the sofa to be there when he finally did.
(I wonder how long it will be before I stop waking up and listening for the sound of clicking toenails, and then remember I’ll never hear them again, and come downstairs anyway to cry without waking Ted.)

But when I think maybe it’s just too soon, then he stutter-steps on his painful front foot and his back legs cross and he falls down hard, again. And he looks at me. And I know it has to end. Tomorrow seems arbitrary, but it’s really not. If not tomorrow, then next weekend- but soon. He has to be in pain. He just never complains.

So I lean over and grab his back end and gently lift, saying, with false cheefulness “It’s ok buddy. I’ll help you. I will pick you up every time you fall from now to the end”

I spent a lot of the day continuing my sweep of dog items to remove from the house: the box by the front door where we keep poop bags, nail trimmer, shedding brush and leash. The bell he rings to go out and whistle we blew to get him to come in. The dog shampoo under the sink. It’s all in a bag in the garage, waiting for Ted to look over them and see if there’s anything he wants to keep.
They only thing I want is his collar, to go in the box with Rocket’s and Boomer’s.
Taking it off before we go to the vet will symbolize releasing him.

I’m trying really hard not to cry around him. Don’t want him to pick up my distress and get anxious. But I keep looking at the clock: 18 hours left. 13 hours more.
It’s absolute agony, this waiting. This final evening.
Tomorrow will be hideous. But then it will be done.

When he woke from his afternoon nap he looked around and didn’t see me at first and struggled to rise. I stood up and said I’m right here. I promised I wouldn’t leave you alone, and I keep my promises. I’m not sure Ted quite understands why I spent most of most nights for the last months- well, since he became unable to climb the stairs to sleep in our room- sleeping on the sofa. Part is convenience: it’s a lot easier to get up from the sofa, pick him up and lay right back down. And it’s easier to hear him when he falls down and needs help.

But mostly it’s because, when Rocket got too frail and confused to come upstairs with us- I LEFT HIM DOWNSTAIRS BY HIMSELF AT NIGHT. Sometimes I would see him standing, looking up the stairs, and I’d come down and sit quietly and stroke his silken head for a while. But when he wandered away, I went back to my own bed and left him to face the dark, and his growing confusion and the end of his life alone.
I loved him. I took care of him and cooked food for him and found tricks to keep his fluid intake up, but I feel like, in his last few weeks, I failed him in that way, and I still carry that with me.

I refused to repeat that mistake. I knew I couldn’t keep Tucker from declining. All I could do was keep him company on the way. Dogs, after all, weren’t made to be alone.

My crazy Rodeo clown. You were such a goof ball. Such a pain in the ass. Thank you for loving me.

Katie came by the morning or her final visit with Tucker. He goes to the vet on Monday morning for the last time.

I brought him in from a “walk” yesterday morning, and when Ted looked up from the sofa, I shook my head.
“Life is just too hard for him, I think”.
And Ted picked up his phone and made the call, right then, before we could second-guess ourselves.

Of course we still did. I spoke to my manager at work (a real dog lover) and said that it’s so hard when there isn’t something obvious, like heart failure or a tumor.
“What if it isn’t really necessary? What if we’re just taking him to be killed?”
He looked at me and said,
“If you even think it might be time… then it’s time. You know it inside, you just don’t want to admit it.”
Boy I sure don’t.

I’ve spent the last few months sleeping at least part of thenight on the couch (the 3/4 sized couch) because when Tucker lost the ability to climb the stairs, even with help, I promised him that I wouldn’t make him be isolated at the end of his days.
We carry him down the steps (working grocery for a year and a half has given me the muscles to lift him at 4 AM when he needs to go out to pee) and lately, coming back up. Twice this week we carried him back from his “Walk” (just one or two houses down now, when once we used to do miles together) because he just didn’t have the will to go.
We have a series of small rugs in the hallway and kitchen because his stiff back legs just slide out from under him on the tile floor. When he’s down in the living room he can still usually get himself up, but not in the kitchen, so we have to pick him up. When he falls down while eating, or getting a drink, or just on one of his many restless circuits around and around from living room to dining room to kitchen to living room.
When he slips, he waits patiently, trustingly for us to put down what we’re doing and come get him. But this is his world now.

For a while I told myself that since he still had a good appetite, enjoyed barking at cats, sniffing at things outside and being petted, that was a reasonable quality of life for him. But now I believe it’s just too hard.
Still, looking at him sleeping by the sofa and thinking “He has 2 more days to live” is really, really, really tough.

I’ve been struggling to write something about this whole shitty experience that pet owners have to go through.  What I’ve got so far is trite and shitty,- can’t decide to make it rhyme or not to- but it’s also true.

When you took me in, I promised
that I would love you with every breath,
greet you at every dawn,
leave you only in death.
I kept my word- I only ask
that you hold me as I say goodbye,
I wont be so frightened
as long as you’re nearby

Walk with me to where the shadow begins
This is our last journey.
I’ve always followed wherever you lead
Today I need you to walk with me.

My love is strong but my body is weak:
for this last part, could you carry me?
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you
This is all I ask for me.

And when we reach this long road’s end-
it’s just a few steps more,
I’ll go into the shadows alone
but won’t you lead me to the door?

Walk with me to where the shadow begins
This is our last journey
I’ve always followed wherever you lead
Today I need you to walk with me.

It’s been a long journey from spazzy little pup to “rodeo clown” to fine dog. And now the journey is almost over. A friend at work said “Soon the spark that lives inside him will be set free to wander”. given how crippled he is now, I like the thought that he will  be set free to run again– Lord, how he loved to run. Maybe his spark will find Boomer’s, and they’ll be together.

Good bye, my dear buddy.
My sweet boy.

My father is selling his cabin. It’s time.

The building, an old tenant farmer’s shack, is falling down now. It was never much, but once it was reasonably sound and snug. I remember clearing out the trash piled inside when he first bought it, sweeping it out and imagining the people who once lived there.  For years it had a  functional wood-burning stove, and we could bring sleeping bags and spend the night out there. Sometimes we would clear a path down the hill and go sledding, then come inside to dry our clothes at the stove and have warm food. Dad took the stove out long ago though. (My god- how has it been so many years?)

When I was a kid, “going out to the cabin” for me was often me and Dad and our packed lunch on a Saturday. I would help him for a while, marking the property line or bringing gravel up from the creek to fill a low spot on the road, and then wander off. Usually I found myself up a tree, or perched on a rock, thinking and just being an angsty kid. There was a big beech tree that you could only get into by climbing a rock and then stepping across a gap into the branches. It was a great place to sit. Now most of that tree is dead.

Mostly the cabin was hikes, family picnics and, when the kids were young, positively *epic* easter egg hunts! Looking through my photo albums last night I found a sucession of pictures of the cousins, crowded together on the old porch swing Dad hung between 2 trees, smiling for the camera with their buckets full of treasure. I think we parents enjoyed it as much as the kids did. Certainly we were more disappointed then they were when they outgrew the hunt.

At most picnics, Grandad would lead a hike up the hill.

When the weather was warm, they would indulge in that endlessly interesting pastime of childhood: mucking about in a stream.

When I was that age, I had the Big Darby at my Grandpa’s cabin. My siblings and cousins had a cabin to grow up with, and we ran wild like a litter of puppies and enjoyed the world in a way you just can’t in your back yard.

And then I lost it. But Dad bought his 35 acres, and though it wasn’t the same, I was glad my kids at least had the little stream and picnics and games with cousins out there.

Our place was even more primative than Grandmother and Grandpa’s cabin: no electricity & no running water (though dad did jury-rig something that functioned as an outhouse). Besides a roof to keep you dry, it was really just trees and rocks and water and sky- and what more do you need?
My father spent decades of his life keeping the path from the road driveable, digging up saplings on one hillside and moving them to another, transplanting clumps of wildflowers near the house, rigging a bridge over the stream so he could drive up to the small pond he had put in.
I knew the seasons of the place: the small dell where lush grass and the most amazing violets grew in spring, the asters and briars of summer, the hickory nuts and incredible aroma of fall and the peace of winter.

My children grew up at the cabin. I’ve grown old with it.

But dad is 90 now, the kids are too busy to go out for Easter or Memorial day picnics at the cabin, and the house really is falling to ruin.
The sentimentalist in me wants to keep it, because it represents so much of my life. (The survivalist in me REALLY wants to keep it as a place to retreat to when civilization falls apart.)
If I won a modest lottery pot- say 100k I would buy the land, sink a well, put up a little wind turbine for electricity, build a small cabin on the hill looking out over the valley and put in a proper road. For many years I have had that dream. Then we could spend summers out there the way my grandparents did with their old cabin, with just the birds and the deer and the wind in the trees for company.

However, “If’s” aren’t real, and my dad can’t even get out to the cabin any more. It makes total sense to sell it.
I wish there was time for one last family and friends picnic, with volleyball or croquet and way too much food.

One more chance to hook the swing back up and soar out over the valley again,, then climb up the hill to the big rocks and enjoy the view of a world with no roads, no houses- just wild Athens county, the way nature made it.
It’s not to be. The sale will be next month.
Well, life is change. I have pictures. And lots and lots of memories.

Gonna take a sentimental journey…
Sentimental journey home…

Last week my dad and his recently-minted 89 years came to Columbus, checked into The James Hospital and had 7 hours of surgery for papillary thyroid cancer.

My brother-in-law Joe, being far too well aquainted with surgery at The James, graciously shepherded dad and his wife through the whole ordeal. Dad went back for pre-op at 9 AM. Then there was a delay, and another… and he was 3 hours late going into the OR. Then the grueling hunt for tiny cancer nodes. It was 10 PM before that elderly man and his exhausted 84 year old wife were deposited in a room on the 21st floor to try to get some sleep. Everyone was worn out- even me, and all I did was sit at home and fret!

When I came to visit the next morning, he looked… well- better than I thought he would. His scar (which he would ask for repeated photographs of over the days to watch the progression of the bruising) looked like a nightmare…

But my dad was smiling and cracking jokes.

What's the difference between thyroid surgery and a mugging?
Dunno- what's the difference, Dad?
Nothing! They both take all your money and slit your throat.

We had been told that he would be hoarse after the procedure and there was a small chance he would lose his voice. And so, to enable him to call for people without raising his voice, and in honor of his great love of the Marx Brothers, I bought him a Harpo Marx clown horn. And a top hat, because of course!

But his voice, like the rest of him, bounded back quickly.
After a few days of him neither eating nor sleeping particularly well, the wound drains came out and the doctors let him go. I had volunteered to stay with them at their place after surgery in case they needed assistance, so I picked them up and drove them back to Athens.
I have satellite radio in my car, and a few years ago I had discovered a 40's station that played the artists whose LP's I remember my dad playing when I was a kid and I thought he might enjoy listening to that as we drove. It used to be called "the 40's on Four" because it was on channel 4, but not any longer. hoping they hadn't eliminated it completely, on the way to the hospital I was punching my way through the station offerings at every red light, looking for it. I got as far as #72 but hadn't found it.

After Dad got settled in my front seat and Dawn in the back and we were headed to the freeway, I started checking stations again- and it was the very next: #73, "40's Junction".
"Hey Dad- how do you like this song?"
"Oh this sounds- is that Count Bassie?"
"It is!"

For the next hour and a half we listened to the classics, and Dad tried to name the musicians, or the tune. If he couldn't guess, he at least had some nugget of information about the musician, or the singer, or the style of music they were playing and why it was popular. Good thing he didn't lose his voice, because he talked or sang along non-stop.
At a traffic light after we pulled off the highway for beverages, a song with a particularly good rhythm came on. Dad beat out the pattern on his legs and the car door- i used the steering wheel. We leaned our heads close, he rumbed a soft baritone while I harmonized up high.

And suddenly my eyes were misting up and I had to rub them, because it was one of those perfect, quintissential Dad moments. 
Like working at his basement workbench together, among the smell of wood shavings and machine oil,

Or hiking a trail and listening to him talk about a flower or tree,

or crawling around on the ground to get the perfect photo angle, Dad and the big-band music he loves is my dad at his best. His happiest.

He is recovering well (and was, in fact, doing rather more puttering around in the 94 degree heat yesterday then I thought he should be doing yesterday) but I don't imagine he will be doing those other "dad" things much any more, if at all. And so I am doubly grateful that, thanks to my satellite radio, me and my dad got to have 90 minutes of easy, pure happiness together.

Gonna take a sentimental journey.
Gonna set my heart at ease.
Gonna make a sentimental journey
to renew old memories.

Never thought my heart could be so yearny.
why did I decide to roam?
Gonna take that sentimental journey:
Sentimental journey home.
 

I don't usually remember my dreams, but this one remains in my memory like a movie I watched. I don't know what it is that makes some dreams slip out of your gray matter upon wakening, like minnows across a pond and some stay. I am writing this down because I suspect it might say something about me.

I was at camp. It wasn't VCc- but in that way of dreams, it was. There were dormitories: one for the older kids, another for the younger. The different wings in each building were the designated "camp sites".
It was going to be my last year there because i was "ageing out". I arrived and was greeted happily by a number of friends, both among campers and staff, who were happy to see me. I was looking forward to a great session as I grabbed my gear and headed into the dormitory to find my assigned campsite and room.

I walked up and down the halls, waving at famililar faces and smiling at new ones, reading the name tags above the doors… and never found my name. 
I went through again.Then I found a counselor and explained my dilema.
"No problem- let me look you up" she said, and went down the list on her clip board. 
"Hmmm… I know you're registered…"
Nope. Not there.

It was confirmed that yes, I had been registered as a camper, I just hadn't been assigned a room. No prob- oh. Huh.
No empty beds. Not one.

I stood there, blinking, nodding my head, feeling both hollowed out and weirdly calm.
Look- we'll figure this out! We can… we can put you in the other dorm!
With the younger kids? Who I will not eat with or have campsite activities with, while all my friends are spending evenings together?
Well we can put you in the admin building, in the wing where the nurse and the custodians sleep. There's a bed free there.
Again, separated from all the people I came here to be with?

I shook my head and began to gather my belongings to take them back to the car. "No" I said. "I guess I'll just go home"
But you're registered! We don't want you to leave!
"Look" i said. "If there were 3 or 4 of us who didn't have beds in the dormitory with everyone else, I could deal with that. We'd get to be with our groups during the day and we would have each other at night. But by myself? The only one? No."

I was certain. I was calm. I was devastated. My last hurrah with my friends- suddenly yanked away. As much as I hated that thought, there was no question in my mind that I was not staying at camp as some lame little hanger-on, always not quite part of things. All the late night singing, talking, card games, story-telling and bonding would not happen for me if I did. I would be a group of one.

I'm not sure why i dreamed this, or why it was so firmly imbedded in my brain that, a week later, I can still feel that awful lonliness just by remembering it. I do have an issue with feeling that I don't belong in social situations, but in this dream, I did belong. everyone wanted me- there just wasn't room. But that didn't make it any better.
And yes: here I am, 57 years old and still dealing with teenaged angst of not belonging.