John Denver lied.

John Denver lied.  That was my thought as I was heave-hoeing 15 forty pound bags of wood pellets into my basement in the drizzly pre-winter weather last night.  John Denver, in his ever-cheery voice,  sang out, “Life on the farm is kinda laid aback, aint nothing a country boy like me can’t hack:  it’s early to bed, early in the sack: Thank God I’m a country boy!”  I am not a boy – I am a middle aged woman and my life in the country is not any kind of “laid aback.”  I do not know the definition of “early to bed.”  In fact, as I microwaved my stouffer’s mac & cheese dinner at 8 pm and was talking to my sister on the phone and she petulantly announced:  “You shouldn’t be eating this late at night; it’s not good for you.”  To which I replied, “It’s better than going to bed hungry, which was the only other option.”

People who don’t live it, don’t get it.  I’m not complaining – I’m just explaining.  You work a forty-hour week elsewhere and come home to continuous catching up to keep the place functioning.  There’s one of me and a million tasks keep presenting themselves.  Life itself doesn’t seem to give you a break.  I had three dogs, each was requiring its own special attention for health reasons.  Then a couple of weeks ago, my big dog had a stroke which led to the Final Vet Visit, and the other two dogs were requiring some sort of special treatment at mealtime because they were protesting hard kibble.  You understand what a dog protest looks like by the floor around the dog dish being covered by individual pieces of dog kibble.  Every meal now involves ME making scrambled eggs, or French toast, or boiling chicken, or making rice…. Then the puppies will come in a week and it will be a whole new rhythm in the dog world and I will have to adjust to it.  This is because I am out-numbered by the dogs.  I should have seen this coming when I allowed Madeline to stay and live with us.  (But I love her and wouldn’t trade it for the world.)

The cat situation is quite a different story.  Cats are much less demanding.  My fourteen year old Snappi is on the retirement plan and just naps on the couch.  She really has worked out well for me pulling her off the city street so many years ago.  My younger cat, Gracie, has now eaten herself to the size of the cocker spaniels.  Somehow I think that whoever labeled her a sealpoint Siamese mix made a mistake.  She is not vocal or genteel like Siamese.  She is just a regular lovable housecat who is quite particular to have her head massaged every morning.  Gracie hops up on the bathroom counter to graze at her breakfast dish and I try to contort myself around her in order to not disturb HER as I brush my teeth and slap some make up on my face.  Finally I installed a mirror for myself in the hallway so that I don’t have to bend like Gumby around the cat.

Last week, I was just thinking out loud:  It is strange to live in the country on the farmlands for six years and no one has dropped off a box of kittens yet.  (For those not familiar with this, it is what lazy people do to avoid bringing “unwanted” kittens to shelters.  To be fair, if the shelters asked for a donation instead of demanding a drop-off fee, people might dump cats in the wilds a lot less.)  So imagine my surprise when I opened the door to find a beautiful long-hair cat that immediately began the hunger chant at me.  

A drizzling of rain was falling upon us.  She was just telling it like it is:  hungry, damp, cold.  I thought back to the previous evening when my neighbor told me, “I told my family NOT to feed the stray cat, let it go over to Chris’ house.”  Yeah.  He really said that.  And here is the very same cat asking for the hand out.  A stray thought went through my head:  It is too close to Christmas to make the mistake of saying “No room at the Inn,” and slamming the door.  I went inside and got a dish and filled it with fresh food and water.  I brought a cat carrier out to the deck and put a dry clean blanket inside.  I advised the cat that the barn next door would be warmer and I couldn’t bring her in to my house just yet.

Why couldn’t I bring her in?  Because all I was thinking about was that I have puppies coming in a little over a week and they will need all of me to take care of all of them.  The cat ate and disappeared.  Two days later she came back for another meal.  Two days later I saw her from a distance working her charms on the farmer next door.  He was heading for his pickup truck and she was reading him the riot act in cat language as he walked away.  I wonder if he is married and walks away when his wife nags him.  It was the same thing, really.

You would think that would solve the problem.  She could sleep in the barn and live off diseased mice and risk getting stepped on by horses or butted by goats.  Tomorrow I will go look for her and see what we can do.  I might as well put a “Bed & Breakfast for Pets” sign on my front lawn.

#############

The Mystery of Transformative Suffering

It’s not an official diagnosis, but I’ve got CDO.  It’s really OCD, except I put the letters in the correct order.  No, I don’t tap a pen on the desk continually until other people run out of the room screaming – I’m not that bad of OCD.  I guess I just like my ducks in a row.  I enjoy predictability as some sort of a pre-determinant to success in my various enterprises.  But that isn’t the way the universe is designed and it doesn’t build character in me either. 

There is an important place for trials and suffering in our lives.  It should shape our personhood so that we become more humble, more noble, more sensitive to the pain and struggles of others.  Yet despite this universal system in which even our failures can make us better people, we still fight against any kind of pain or struggle…. As if somehow it is tolerable for everyone else but should never happen to us.

Last Sunday morning I went through the crucible of angst in a way that is reserved only for people like me:  namely, dog-lovers.  My elderly big dog had a stroke quite early in the morning (4:30 am) and it put us on the obvious course of taking the Final Trip to the veterinarian.  Even though I knew this day would come, and I knew it was coming closer by the day as her various abilities waned (sight, hearing, getting up, navigating two simple stairs to the garage), I still hated the fact that I was standing IN that day AT that moment. 

I had one of my very closest friends at my side – not so much to grieve the loss with me, which she did – but also to chaperone ME in case I needed to be contained.  There are zones of our personality that we cannot predict or control, no matter how hard we try.  At some point that morning I had this absolutely naïve delusion that I was going to be composed at that final veterinarian visit.  The opposite happened; a grief came over me the likes of which I could not wish on my worst enemy.  I even asked my friend in the middle of it, “How many times can your heart break and you still LIVE?”  because I thought I was running out of internal stamina. 

I buried my face in the silver-chocolate colored fur of my dog’s back and stroked her very fabulous tail.  (My other two smaller dogs have docked tails; so you should appreciate a fabulous dog tail when you see one and it wagged for you for 13 years on a daily basis.)  And I found myself saying out loud:  “It isn’t fair.  It just isn’t fair.” 

What wasn’t fair?  That every one of us, both man and beast, has an expiration date?  Or the fact that I had to endure such enormous, separating pain – after 13 years of incredible fun and bonding, which I didn’t deserve either?  Why do we think God or the universe “owes” us a good time, all the time, forever? 

If one more person says, “That’s why I will never get another dog again …” I may get ugly.  But my friend DT said it best:  “If you didn’t feel that badly then that’s the person who shouldn’t get a dog again.”  Excellent point.  I confided that I will ALWAYS have a dog…. Until they put me in a nursing home … and if they don’t let me have a dog there, then I will probably threaten to burn the place down!  (well, just as an expression of passion for the subject, right?  I’m sure they will take my matches from me.) 

The kind of person my dog has made me is something I am aware of because of what we have lived through together.  I am persistent.  I am determined.  I kept her even when her character flaws were initially all on the surface because I knew that the abuse she had endured before she lived with me caused her to be that way.  I also had strong faith that I could bring her through to be her very best self.  I trained her with one of the top-notch dog trainers in the area because I wanted to do it the right way, the first time.  I have never been sorry for that investment.  She has laid her head on the laps of children that came to visit; she has helped teach and encourage a litter of my other dogs’ puppies as they were learning to explore and walk.  Her gentleness was an absolute inspiration to me.  I loved taking her camping because I felt totally secure with her guarding me.  Her beauty and happiness echo in my heart and all around me.

The day after she left us, I took my two spaniels to the beach to watch boats and smell seagull poop.  I expected that it would be a good change of scenery for us.  What I forgot as I packed them into the back seat of my vehicle was that my front seat would now be empty.  The sweet dog that used to head butt my elbow so that I would continuously pet her as I drove was not there.  The rawness of that moment flooded my eyes up in seconds.  And as we drove onward to the beach, I knew that somehow she would be with us – watching us as angels watch us – and that the loss and separation were somehow temporary.

I did not share my loss on Facebook – because that is too banal for this kind of suffering.  It would be disrespectful against an experience that was sacred and transformative.  And I don’t want people who barely know me just popping little crying emogees at my post.  I DO want to share this in a way that helps others process and heal their own grief – and to make sense out of the things that seem pointless.  Eventually, I will be able to speak about her with composure and that mysterious peace which comes to us when we have let our grief have its day.  But for now, I can tell pieces of the story when the opportunity presents itself….

Later in the week I told my mother that out of all the people on the planet, I am one who knows when I am going to die.  She said, “And how is that?”  I replied:  “Because one day St. Francis of Assisi is going to say to the Lord, ‘You have to pull her ticket Lord, because she keeps sending dogs up here and I’ve got my hands completely full!’”

############