Forgiveness in a Season of Hope

Forgiveness in a Season of Hope

“What actually DOES it mean to forgive?” I asked my friend.  She looked at me, as if waiting for a disclaimer on the question, or that it would be a rhetorical one, with an answer neatly packaged following the question mark.  But really I just needed to double check with another sane adult that I was on the right track with my mid-life assessment.  With some concepts, your insight changes with your life experience.

Forgiveness really comes after the long pause when the Christmas carols stop.  By that I mean, we all sing “Joy to the World, the Lord is come,” and yet God in His heaven was aware even at that moment that the Divine baby had a rough road ahead.  Years later, the Gospel writer makes it awkwardly clear that the adult Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, as an ancient king would, being greeted by palm fronds laid at his feet knew these people’s hearts.  He knew that one minute they were hailing him, and the next minute they’d be turning him over for execution.  Such is the distressing nature of humanity:  we don’t always stay in the right frame.  God Himself learned to live in the moment when things were going great, while being painfully aware that “great” is not a permanent human condition.

Forgiveness doesn’t give someone a free pass for bad behavior.  I think of the Presidential scandal involving a young woman, a closet, and a blue dress.  The country asked the question:  “Can we forgive the President?”  But that really was a red herring – a distraction from the true issue.  The question of that forgiveness didn’t belong to us.  It belonged to:  his wife, God, and the young woman he led astray.  I am going to put the burden on his shoulders for that.  The alleged adult in the situation has to own the responsibility.  The leaders of his faith (Baptist) sent in some big name, conference-speaker Baptists to meet with him and get him to repent and pray with them.  And I think they came out bewildered, not realizing going in that he was not going to repent in front of them, lest it hurt a court case.

Years ago, I asked a lawyer how it was that she could represent a client she knew was guilty.  Her answer surprised me, “It is not my job to decide if the person is innocent or guilty.  It is my job to give them the best defense possible.”  In effect, she had to lay aside the issue of innocent or guilty and look at re-defining the situation to a light that looked good.  This perhaps was the reason I could never go into the practice of law.  I just couldn’t do it.

Forgiveness also does not let someone into the place where they can do the same damage again.  That would be just foolish.  Best case I can think of that violated this:

Chappaquidick.  I hear the name of the town and I feel odd in the pit of my stomach.  What actually happened on the night that the now-late Senator Ted Kennedy walked away from the vehicle sinking into the water with MaryJo Kopeckne inside it?  And how was it that he came to sit before television cameras to ask the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts if they would still let him be their senator?  And what the HELL were they thinking when they said stuff to the street corner reporters that had nothing to do with the real issue?  Ie.) “Yeah, I think he deserves another chance.”  WHAT?!  Does someone “need” to be senator that badly, that they can’t just say:  “I’ve been part of a great tragedy.  I’m just going to go home quietly and mourn that I was even part of this.”  Humility and politics never made good bed-fellows apparently.

Forgiveness doesn’t trivialize the nature of the injury.  “No big deal.”  “Nah, we’re all good.”  “It’s okay.”  Nope.  It’s not okay.  In thinking about the things that disrupt the flow of life, and actually hurt people … which tends to flow out in concentric circles …. We need to be better at saying, “how can we make this right?”  and “what do we need to do to right this ship for sailing forward?”  Good communication skills are important for forgiveness.  Do you want to know how deeply you have hurt someone, if you touch them and they pull back like you stabbed them, that’s a pretty good indication. 

When I taught a morality class years ago, I said to the young adults that when we think of preparing for marriage we tend to think too much about sexuality.  That is actually the smallest part of the married life.  Give it a number, say 5% of 7 days a week (if you’re lucky).  And if that is so, then what is the largest part of married life???  95% COMMUNICATION.  When your communication breaks down and you think you hate the other person’s guts, the last thing you are interested in is …. letting them touch you.  So then it will take all those other skills (95%) to point you towards the solid path of reconciliation, if you ever want to see the 5% again.  It’s that simple.  I asked an elderly married couple to identify what enabled the longevity of their marriage.  She smiled and said, “I always let him have the last word.”  He smiled back and said, “Yes.  And the last word is:  Yes, dear.”

Forgiveness is subsequent to an emotional wound.  Like physical wounding, the healing takes time depending on the depth and breadth of the cut.  It may involve the help of a professional – an emotional doctor of sorts – clergy, psychologist, trusted friend.  It may involve a period of silence.  Sometimes you just have to sit with the debris and let the dust settle.  A hasty forgiveness may not be a complete forgiveness or a well-placed forgiveness.

Forgiveness may require new boundaries.  These boundaries say:  “Yes, I can forgive this wounding.  But, no, the person can’t have access again to the same area of my heart or life.”  Out of respect for the injured party, and in a spirit of true reconciliation, that is not an unreasonable request. 

Forgiveness brings a New Normal.  It could be stronger than the Old Normal.  It can and should be WISER than the Old Normal.  It should at least be better than the Old Normal.  And re-calibrating normal, again, always takes time and can’t be rushed for the sake of slapping a label on it that the issue is over and done with. 

Forgiveness may not even mean that both parties agree on an issue going forward – unless the issue is to have respect for the no-fly zones so that there isn’t further injury.  Forgiveness at times is one-sided:  the injured party forgives for the sake of his/her own peace, and that’s that.  Sometimes people walk away from a falling out and one side never really understands what the true issue was.  Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t know why you are getting so upset?”  That’s what that is.  It does no good for the injured party to continue to churn the toxic feelings inside himself/herself every time the other person comes to mind.  One friend always told me:  “Let go and let God.”  Great advice.  Except she had to take a “nerve pill” to enable her to get to that point.  I’m only taking Benadryl for the hives.

Little baby born in Bethlehem, did you choose a stable to remind us that life is messy?  Did your momma and daddy have sorrow in their hearts as they had traveled from inn to inn so you could be born in a soft bed, and yet were rejected at every turn?  When the star shone overhead to bring strangers from afar to worship you also remind you that your own people would struggle in accepting you?  Did the warm breath of the ox and ass in the stable serve as an example that sometimes the animals are more compassionate and nurturing than neighbors?  All of these injustices against your holy and innocent self when you came among us … teach us, who are imperfect, to better forgive during this holy season.

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

Martha's Calendar

Martha’s Calendar

Martha isn’t being 100% honest with us.  I’m a big fan of Martha Stewart – mostly because I think she is very enterprising and seems to have created a life that supports itself and looks fun.  I even admire her going to jail for “insider trading” because I bet the place looked great once she left it.  But what I do want to point out, since we are talking about unfair advantage, is her calendar that she publishes inside her magazine.  I thought that was the coolest thing until I compared it to MY CALENDAR.  At this writing I’d just like to point out the one glaring omission:  repetition.

In the course of a month, I don’t recall seeing any task that was repeated.  Like the Saturday she “groomed the horses.”  Who grooms them the other 30 days in the month?  Listing grooming horses as an event on the calendar as if it was a social engagement leaves me wondering what else on the calendar is celebrated by Martha once, but handled by an employee all the other days of the month and year. 

My example to drive the point home is this:  I take my dogs to the groomer to be formally groomed about 3 times a year.  All the other times they get baths, it’s good ole Momma Christine chasing them around the house with a leash, circling the kitchen island more than once, throwing them in the tub, getting down on my knees with towels on the floor in the bathroom, checking the temp of the water, holding the collar with one hand and doing the pouring and washing with my other hands.  Oh wait, I have only two hands.  So I must be pouring, washing, massaging shampoo, and rinsing with just ONE hand while firmly gripping the wet dog collar with the other.  I can feel my low back twinge and the thought of the strain of kneeling over the rim of the bathtub at that contortionist angle.  This is not by any means an exaggeration.  Just the same, it is also not by any means a social event.  I put it on my calendar to remember that I did it and survived.

I bet I know a thing that doesn’t make it to Martha’s calendar.  Last night it was 8pm.  The television and the couch looked inviting, except for that subtle draft that comes between the gap located at the bottom of the top and top of the bottom windows in my living room.  How many window companies, how many engineers, did it take to make perfectly good windows with a sixteenth of an inch draft included at no extra charge?  Did I leave the job for the next day, or did I tackle it last night?  I stood in the living room looking at the windows as if I haven’t seen these same windows for the past eight years.  I sighed over and again.  I looked at the package of plastic window sheeting on my table.  I thought about how much fun working with double-sided sticky tape and lightweight flying plastic is (Not.).  I mumbled some word I would not say in church or in front of my mother and picked up the box and began to unravel the plastic.  It wasn’t cut into three separate sheets for the three windows I was about to tackle.  It was one big, long sheet I’d have to cut to size as I went.  Yippee.  Oh, joy.  Another non-social event to put on my calendar.

My “Yesterday” on the calendar was not just one thing; like for instance, attending a birthday party that involved me arriving by private jet or helicopter.  (Don’t you just hate how helicopters wreck your hair?  I watched a helicopter rescue people on a sandbar one summer day in Chatham.  I imagine the whipping up of the helicopter blades made the sunbathers feel like they were getting a high-pressure body exfoliation.  Note to self:  do not ignore the rising tide when you are on a sandbar.)  My “Yesterday” list on the calendar says:  dump, Aldi’s, animal shelter (2 trips; same day); and hunt for women’s snow pants.  The snow pants were not at the two stores that said online that they had them.  One store had two pair, but they were too small.  The other store did not have them at all.  Two years ago, I bought a pair online and had to give them away due to a size conflict.  Apparently, I’m fatter than they think should fit into the size they list.  But how can I go out snow-shoeing to lose weight if I can’t seem to get my hands on a decent pair of snow pants?  A vicious circle indeed.  I see a couch and movies in my future this winter.  When they bury me in a piano case, someone is going to undoubtedly ask, “How did this happen?”  Be sure to tell them it was the damn snow pants I couldn’t find.

I am in a new habit of writing down all kinds of stuff on my desk blotter calendar at home.  (I did get that idea from Martha’s calendar.)  I think it is how I am justifying the space I take up on the planet:  if I accomplish something worthy, it’s good that I was here, right?  The whole process of picking grapes, making wine and jam, and cleaning up the vineyard is well documented.  Theoretically, someone could just take right over next year if I croak and can’t do it.  All the documentation is there.  Same thing with the dog breeding.  You would know exactly when to de-worm the pups, when to start mixing in cottage cheese and formula to start their weaning, etc.  It’s all there.  Oil changes, car washes, days I was sick and stayed home from work so that I didn’t end up going to work as a Patient instead of an Office worker, all the painful and joyous monotony of my life. 

When I look at my calendar, it is clear to me that I am a lot busier than Martha is.  That being said, I still want to be her friend and would gladly sit down to a sip of my homemade wine and my store-bought cheese and crackers with her if she wanted.  But at this point I’m not sure what I would enjoy more:  a ride in her private jet, or one of her farm hands to come help me put up snow fence.  We’ll have to discuss that.

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

Dogs are "sparrows" too

Dogs are “Sparrows” too

My great aunt used to regularly say to us:  “God works in wondrous ways, His marvels to perform.”  At my age at the time, I had no idea what that meant.  Years later, in a popular movie, I saw a young woman sit at the piano and sing in a low, soulful voice:  “I sing because I’m happy; I sing because I’m free; His eye is on the sparrow …. And I know He watches me.”  There are times when I am not 100% certain that His eye is on the “sparrows” of life.  I have my moments of doubt and discouragement just like everyone else. 

But I will say that as I have walked this life for over half a century by now, I am aware that when I think God is somehow asleep at the wheel, He is about to perform something else.  He doesn’t meet needs and address issues the way I would.  That’s because our job titles are distinctly different, a universe apart.  He sees the bigger picture.  When I lost a puppy in a litter last year, I wondered for more than a second why this little “sparrow” was not miraculously saved.  Today, when I told a new friend the story of Losing Connery, she asked me one question:  “Did the mother dog ignore him?”  I said to her, yes, every time I put the pup to momma to feed, she looked away.  The pup did not latch on and nurse.  I even tried hand feeding, to no avail.  I felt like I was shoveling sand …. Or something worse … against the tide.  My friend affirmed what I suspected:  “Momma dogs turn away when something is wrong with the puppy.”  Somehow that makes me feel better.  Not a lot better, but enough better.  I just need to know that it wasn’t my fault that he didn’t thrive.

A few months ago, I re-homed my friend’s cat for her.  I took a re-homing fee from the new owner as insurance that if the deal went south, I’d have at least some resources to help me care for the cat myself until Plan B unfolded.  No need.  Plan A worked great.  I took the re-homing fee and made a donation to a local shelter.  As I reflected on their business, I wondered if I could help them with their donor-based fundraising plan so I typed a few ideas out.  I planned to eventually drop by the shelter and offer my suggestions to them when I had time.  Two months passed.

Meanwhile, I had a few extra cans of cat food that were in my cabinet.  Today, on a whim, I decided to drive those to the shelter and see if I could talk to someone about fundraising.  I had forgotten about the other things I needed to re-purpose.  But the Supervisor of “sparrows” did not.

The young shelter manager was so gracious and invited me into her office to chat.  I gave her my piece of paper with my humble ideas (fundraising techniques I wish I knew when I was managing a non-profit 30 years ago).  When we were just about wrapping-up our time together, her phone rang.  A litter of orphaned puppies were on their way in for care.  The lightbulb in my brain snapped on.  I thought I had been there for one reason.  In fact, I was led there for a DIFFERENT REASON, unbeknown to me.  I asked her:  Do you have handfeeding formula for puppies, or do you need some?  She checked her cupboard, and she had only kitten formula.  I told her I would be back.  Within the hour I was able to deliver the puppy formula and Hi calorie protein gel for pups (I call it miracle gel, because it perks them up if they are logy.  After the last litter of puppies at my house, it became apparent that our next litter would be no sooner than three years away.  That fact had left me with a full can and a 1/3 of puppy formula which would expire before I needed to use it.  I was waiting to see where it could be put to good use.  Now I know.

The “perk” for me was as simple as being able to hold one of the puppies of this litter of orphans.  She trembled, a three-week-old beautiful girl puppy with no Momma dog to feed her.  I kissed the top of her tawny-colored head.  She will not go hungry, nor will her siblings.  The kind people at the shelter will do their best and it will all work out. 

And I thought I was just bringing cans of cat food and fundraising ideas.  Today’s Lesson in Trust:  I guess I will leave the management of sparrows and puppies to bigger Hands.  I’m just so glad I got to be there.

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

Pet Peeves?

Pet Peeves?

My Pet Peeves are not with pets at all.  They are mostly with the humans that are allegedly supposed to care for their pets…. and somehow fall woefully short of demonstrating common sense when given the opportunity.  I share these real-life stories with you so that I am not the only one who is eating TUMS as if they are lifesavers.

The award for “AYKM:  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” goes to last week’s candidate.  There I am schlepping across the parking lot to get into a building and there is a vehicle parked near an area where the traffic flow is pretty consistent.  I didn’t see a person sitting in a car.  What I DID see was a little yorkie that was actually balancing on the open car window ledge and – as dogs do before they make a leap – he seemed to be sizing-up the distance between where he was standing and the ground.  All I could think is:  If that dog jumps and gets run over in front of me, honestly, I will Throw. Right. Up. Here.  On the sidewalk.  So I called out:  “No-no little dog; go back in the car!”  And then I hear the owner:  “I’m right here.”  He was sitting in the front seat, I just could not see him.  The problem with that scenario is he clearly does not have a dog intuition.  When you can see the dog’s gears turning in his head, plotting his next daring escape from captivity, you just DON’T take risks like that.  You just DON’T.  I called out to the man:  “Sorry.  I didn’t see you sitting there!”  So here I am thinking I tried to do someone a favor so their dog won’t get squashed like a pancake, and I end up feeling guilty for saying anything.  The man thought he was in control.  The dog and I know otherwise.  AYKM  Award.

Maybe it’s because I am mid-life that I feel edgy and want to yell at people.  Or maybe, just maybe, some people really NEED to be yelled at.  This weekend I went to a beautiful outdoor farm market & craft venue in the Finger Lakes.  It is comprised of about 20 sheds with crafters and vendors set up in a charming little village of shops.  When I say “sheds,” what I mean is:  SHEDS.  The ones that were bigger than sheds where you park your lawnmower were really only sheds that were hooked together with a common side door.  They are cute, yet they are small.  Frankly, I almost had my “moment” when this woman walked in with her labradoodle on one leash, and Scottish terrier on the other leash.  Lady, please, there is not enough space for PEOPLE in here, much less dogs.  And of course, instead of being able to shop in peace, I have to listen to people fussing over her dogs.  And whose ego was that feeding?  Further, where were my dogs?  Home napping on the couch, as God intended. 

The woman who took my mental space one step farther to the edge was the one who was walking around with a Newfoundland.  If you are not a dog person, and can’t place what that looks like, just picture a dog that is the size of an two year old black bear cub, and then add a few (50) extra pounds.  One of my dear friends owns a Newfoundland and in order to “fill the dog up” at supper, they add a 10 ounce package of frozen/thawed vegetables.  Gracious.  I can’t eat ten ounces of vegetables in a week.  The dog eats it once a night!  So, I get it, that people don’t want to lock their dogs in their hotel room – it’s part of the nation-wide campaign:  “No Dogs Left-Behind.”  But do you really need to bring the dog into a crowd of people to take up space?!  And let me ask, not that people “matter,” but what about people who are deathly afraid, or even deathly allergic to dogs?  Don’t they have a RIGHT to shop in the outdoors without having their space invaded?  I’m just sayin’ because really you’d have to look long and hard to find someone who loves ALL dogs as much as I do – but I just think there’s a time you need to leave them home.  And let’s talk about kids for a minute….

Note:  "Make it easy FOR YOU"

What about these outdoor fall craft shows …. And the mommies that think they need to bring Cranky Baby in his stroller and push him through the craft tents?  What does that poor kid have to look at:  The buns walking in front of him!  Is that fair to the kid?  NO.  If I had to look at redneck buns in front of me at eye level, I’d be cranky too!  Years ago when I was a teenager, and dinosaurs roamed the earth, there were these paid helpers we called “baby sitters.”  No it wasn’t a television.  It was, egads, an actual person that you paid cold hard cash to sit with your kid for a few hours so that you could get a break from the relentlessness of parenting.  It was a win-win for both child and parent.  But today’s human parent, and today’s doggie parent, oftentimes don’t take that opportunity – instead they just bring about the extension of their own persona so they can get complimented.  After all, it’s all about them anyways.  AYKM.

Lastly, a shout out to teenagers.  AYKM.  Teens can be some of the nicest people.  But then again, they are people so they have a dark side too…. It is an insensitive, make-you-pay for your last interface with them that didn’t go their way.  Case in point:  I pulled in my driveway after work and noticed the duck in the pasture next door was sitting in exactly the same place  he was eight hours ago when I left for work.  I was in my good work clothes and cute shoes but walked over to the edge of the fence nonetheless to assess the duck situation.  He barely opened an eye at me as I spoke to him.  I went into the barn and found the young woman that I had met a week ago when she was screaming her lungs out at her little sister.  On that day, I had told her:  “My experience from teaching high school a while ago was that if you have to scream like that, you already lost the war.”  But I am silly to think that she would like advice from a person who has already seen that movie and learned the hard way.  So there I stood before her again asking what was up with the duck.  She said, “I don’t know, maybe it got stepped on or kicked.”  Lovely.  A broken duck and we plan to just leave it there to freeze over night.  I appealed to her sense of kindness:  “Can we bring it into the barn for the night so at least it can die where it is warmer?”  She said, “Sure.  We can put it in the empty stall.  I will turn off the electric fence and you can go get the duck.”  The irony of that didn’t hit me until I was standing next to horse shit, in the mud, talking to the duck and picking it up … while still in my good work clothes and cute shoes.  The duck made no protest and quite uncharacteristically of ducks, didn’t even poop on my shoes when I picked it up and brought it inside the barn.  But the fact that a teenager who was IN barn clothes working somehow got ME to go out in the mud said a lot.  Something was all ducked-up with that situation.  AYKM times a million.

Lastly:  My most significant pet peeve.  If I see someone driving a car with a dog hanging its head out the window, I know that I have found an escaped village idiot.  Dogs are like kids in some respects:  they will do what feels good without thinking of consequences. Their welfare relies on the people that own them. In this case, the consequences, namely, eye injuries…. could be sustained by any piece of debris that is hitting a dog’s eye at 60 miles per hour.  I really don’t care about that person’s veterinary bills.  I am solely concerned for the dog that will sustain an excruciating injury – have you ever scratched your cornea before?  I accidentally got something in my eye once and the pain of even a slight scratch to the cornea made me put my head on my steering wheel and WAIL out loud three minutes after the drugstore clerk said, “Oh, the pain medicine for that isn’t in stock.  But they have it at our Other Store (eight miles down the road).”  I believe I said something like:  “You’ve got to be kidding me.  In a rural community where getting ‘stuff’ in your eye could be part of regular farm life and you don’t have the pain medication for this….”  That’s all I remember that I can repeat in polite company.  Based on that experience plus a shred of common sense I implore dog owners everywhere to get the dog’s head back in the car where it belongs.  That I have to say this at all makes me again say Are You Kidding Me?!

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

Where Dogs Go

The small red collar with white dog bones printed on it felt so empty in my hand.  I did not anticipate how easily it made me cry to drop it into the basin of soapy water with the long leash.  It reminded me of everything my heart really wants to forget about last Wednesday.

Writers are supposed to pay attention to what their readers ask for.  My favorite reader remarked that after reading “Losing Connery,” it brought a tear to her eye … and that perhaps I should write happier things.  With a wistful sense of resignation, I told her I could only write what I knew.  And that, after all, is the writer’s #1 rule:  write what you know.  So I reach into my heart and pull out this new sorrow that has been graciously shared by so many dear friends and family.

I wrote a sort of obituary for my beloved Bethany Darlin’ Pearl and posted it to Facebook.  I did write it that same night but had to sit a few hours with the newly rendered grief in my heart to be able to make it sacred, to do her justice.  The two dogs left behind with me, her daughter Madeline Grace Pearl from her first litter and her grandson Valor Prince of Morning Glory Acres, didn’t immediately seem to get it, that she had not been dropped off at the groomers for a bath and cut like I had so many times before.  I returned from the veterinary office with the collar and leash clutched in my trembling hand.  My heart felt like one big bruise and I was holding emotions that I could only “sit with” to be able to let them ripen so I could understand them.  My soul was sitting shiva for my dog.

The facebook post said:

Tonight I said thank you and goodbye to my precious Bethany Darlin’ Pearl who was such a great dog.  So many of us have the gift of one of her puppies in our lives.  She was truly a beautiful soul.  She came from Arkansas and was the first puppy I raised from 8 weeks.  So many great memories…. She had health issues at the end … I miss her already.  I hope I did good by her all these 13 years …. The house isn’t the same without her following me from room to room.  May her legacy live on in her puppies and grand pups.

So many, many people weighed in to express condolences.  My appreciation for those comments is deep.  At the time of this loss, it reminded me of the question someone once raised at an adult Bible study about where dogs go to when they die.  I was surprised at the calloused presumption behind the question and now I think I can tell them a real answer.  My initial response amidst a grief so great would be that most dogs go where most humans have not earned a right to enter either by faith, works, or even grace ...  but I will call on a greater charity and answer nicely.

I am not a philosopher.  I have NO idea how I passed Philosophy 101 because the professor, having taught the class a hundred million times to those obliged by pre-requisite standards to take it, had perfected the art of droning.  No, I do not reference robotic flight.  I mean the Original kind of droning, the kind that puts listeners into a stupor without joy.  I believe I got a B- or a C in that class.  He was boring.  The book was boring.  The class was boring.  If there were a fee to be charged students relative to the Boredom Scale, it would have been quite the sum. 

As an adult 30 years later, I realize that the gravest of injustices was done to the gift of Philosophy in that very class.  Philosophy teaches you how to think about life and its bigger questions.  It also teaches you how other people think about the same.  And hopefully in the process you are able to sort out the difference between bull crap and rational processing of ideas.  That in itself is a critical life skill.  The word philosophy means “love of wisdom.”  Anyone who does not love wisdom is, by implicit definition, a fool.  The bible echoes that sentiment many times in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures.  I am sure other religious traditions feel the same about the pre-eminence of wisdom and the result when people spurn it.

St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Catholic philosopher ever, was practically leagues-deep in the wisdom that comes from study, pondering and a life of deep prayer.  I want to share, in my kindergarten level version of Aquinas’ thought, what I told the Bible study people about what we could surmise about where dogs go.  I turn to his writings on The Soul where he says that since a soul is the spirit of life in a thing, that everything that lives has “soul” in some sense.  He divided the kingdoms into:  plant souls, animal souls, and people souls.

I further posit that anything lovely, beautiful, and good shares in those qualities because God in His Mercy extended them to that thing or creature.  Therefore, if there are roses in heaven, they will be the most beautiful, fragrant, amazing roses ever – beyond the imagination of the human, and honed to perfection by His Majesty.  If there are animals in heaven, they have the disposition of the first animals before The Fall of creation … they are peaceful, joyful, and reflect no evil or negligence that their counterparts on earth may have suffered at the hands of mankind.  (This is also my hope to greet two of my dogs in Glory who will then be perfectly “house trained,” unlike their life on earth with me.)

So how do I give hard data that this actually happens?  How is it that this is not just pious, dog-loving rambling pouring out of the dreams of my heart?  This is how:  if what I believe about the destiny of people has been proven over time through the returns of both saints and sinners, then what I believe about dogs must be true by extension.  I can tell of the return of Jesus after death, or Catholic saints but those stories have been told already by many, and perhaps better regaled than I could.  I can tell the story from within my own family: 

A week before my grandmother died, she was sleeping in bed and woke up in the night.  She poked my grandfather, “Staszek, look.   Babcia (her mother, my great-grandmother) is standing at the foot of the bed.”  My grandfather did not see her and told her to go back to sleep.  A week later, my grandmother rose from bed in the middle of the night and tried to go down the hallway to get a glass of water.  She collapsed in the hallway and passed away. 

The Polish people have both legends and stories of those who have come back to educate, warn, or make a way for someone.  These things I believe without effort because it is in my bones – not just my culture – to do so.  Yet it has also been my experience that dogs sometimes linger after their bodies give way.

My first dog that I adopted shortly after I graduated from college lived about 20 years.  She was a part of everything that was great in my life – my first job out of college was in youth ministry and she accompanied me on camping trips with the kids.  When I taught high school, I brought her to the lock-in to hang out with the kids also.  I promised her that I would soon get out of renting apartments and move into a house with her.  When I moved to the Bridgeport house, I brought her with me, but her age and her health were against us.  Within a few short years, I took her to the final veterinary visit because of her cancer, yet I was unable to bring her home to be laid to rest until I got a hole dug at the house.  That meant her body was at the clinic for 4 days.  As I drove home without her, I sensed her with me – everywhere – walking on the grass outside, lingering in the kitchen, just being nearby somehow.  The following Saturday, I retrieved her body, gave her a proper burial and returned to my routine.  I could no longer sense her around.  Her tired frame was laid to rest, and that is when her soul was free to go further.

Over two years ago, I laid to rest my lab mix Timbyr.  I have no unusual stories to tell about that. I awoke that morning to find she had a stroke and I knew what the right, but always difficult, next-step for me the human, was.  I told her as she passed who to look for, and to expect macaroni and cheese.  (Hey, your idea of perfect heaven doesn’t have to be the same as hers!)  Last Wednesday, when my Bethany Pearl was passing, I had told her to go to Timbyr.  There was no feeling of her lingering at the clinic that afternoon.  The vet didn’t need to tell me when she was gone, I knew first because my hand was on her and I felt her soul dissipate from her body.  She is good now.  But I am not.

As the days pass, the other two dogs stick with me loyally, and I am aware that I am not worthy of this dedication.  Also, I am not the most pleasant of company since I sometimes struck with the grief again and can’t pull back from crying.  My friends think I am great with dogs.  But that is not entirely true.  I love my dogs fiercely, but I do not always put them first.  I am not always aware of their needs if I am too focused on other more demanding – or distracting - things.  More than once, Madeline has flipped an empty dog dish down the cellar stairs to call attention to an important thing I forgot to do.  My heart is heavy for the ways I wish I could give to them with the zeal and dedication that they give to me.  I am a flawed human being, and while I chose each of them initially to be with me on this part of my journey, I am ever grateful for their continued choosing to give love, joy and fellowship to me so freely.  Only a good, very good, God could have made dogs for the likes of mankind.  And it stands to reason if we, who behave at times with such less dignity and grace than them, are destined for His eternal company, then so too must they be destined.

You can, of course, choose to disagree with me.  But you will be wrong.  And some day, I’ve got at least five dogs who are going to prove that to you.  As for me, perhaps they will share their mac & cheese with me.

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

 

Momentary Joy

I feel like I am being punished.  Sometimes.  Punished, not by God (who I am told has a particular liking for me), but by my circumstances of life that are beyond my control.  Last year I had a moment of enlightenment where I realized what it means when they say, “Into every life a little rain must fall.”  It seemed that with every experience that I hoped would be at least a moment of pure and lasting joy, something less-than-stellar was happening at the same time.  Initially I resented the intrusion on my moment of happiness.  Then I wondered if I got it backwards – maybe it was really a moment of joy that was happening in the middle of a life that is, unfortunately, periodically challenging for all of us. 

Anyone who knows me knows that raising puppies has brought me the greatest joy.  It is an immense amount of work, but I am confident that I am raising awesome family dogs and bringing so much happiness to many people.  Last night I held Mariette Joy in my hands – she is barely over 4 pounds – and she smiled and blinked at me.  It was a golden moment.  I watched Bandit and Gordie grab a small white towel that had been on the floor and tug, tumble, and bunch it up.  Sebastian was pestering his doggy grammie Bethany Pearl by head-butting her as she situated herself calmly on the floor to watch all the antics.  I think even Grammies of dogs have gained the perspective that Mommies do not have.  Namely, you don’t have to correct everything, sometimes you can just watch as things sort themselves out.

Having the puppies means eventually “not-having” them.  Which, even when you keep one, it grows up and is a different kind of experience than 5-week-old doggy babies are.  A forgetful friend keeps asking me, “Now when can they go to their new homes?”  And I keep replying: “thanks for asking that painful question.”  After living through the vigilant state of the first four weeks, the joys of weeks 5-8 are a reward indeed.  The last four weeks before they go to new homes are lots of fun.  Well, yes, and lots of poo and potty, too.

 

“When you’re raising dogs, that’s ALL you’re doing is raising dogs,” I once said.  I reference the amount of attention and care I pay toward keeping them warm, well fed, and growing.  I weigh them twice a day.  I feed their mother 4 times a day.  If you do the math, that includes a 4 a.m. or thereabouts feeding.  The first week I take off from work because normal human sleep is just not possible. 

But this litter experience was different.  First of all, I was rewarded by God with GOOD BABIES.  I mean it.  This litter is quieter at night and sweeter during the day than I ever could have dreamed.  That is a reward, because sometimes it might not have been easy…. Not that I remember any other thing.  Here’s the counter-point:  all of the Other Things that kept happening relentlessly through these past five weeks are noteworthy.  In fact, they seemed at times to be the short road to the insane asylum.

Ø  A week before they were due to be whelped (born), my furnace began to make this incredible noise like a monster in the basement.  I knew to jump on that immediately because I would in short order be SLEEPING in the basement on the other side of the wall from the monster soon enough.  I had one guy come and quote me $770 for the new part.  He charged me $150 for a two minute diagnosis.  I asked him, “Are you going to do a cleaning today?  He said, Nah, I’ll do it when I come back with the part.”  Reeling from sticker-shock, I did not call him back to do that.  I had another guy come and give me a re-purposed part for $40 plus labor charge.  THAT is the guy I will call back to do the cleaning and any other maintenance in the future.  AND I will give referrals to him as well.  I like helping nice people move their business forward.

Ø  I’m sarcastically lifting my glass to toast the end of online dating.  I’m not ending it because of success, mind you.  I’m ending because I didn’t go online for a few months to see that they had locked me into a monthly renewal fee and just kept pulling it out of a rarely-used checkbook.  You find that out when the bank sends you a letter telling you that a check bounced but they put it through for you anyways.  I had authorized a charge for one period of dating service access (which gained me a few friends and no dates).  The company had a revolving clause.  So I had to actually “fight” the online dating people to give back money for a service I had not USED in months.  THEN they actually wanted to know if I was satisfied with their customer service?!  It was a charitable act on my part that I did NOT fill out the survey.

Ø  Six months ago, I stepped on something.  I didn’t want to deal with it.  I thought it was a splinter and I hoped it would go away.  Six months ago was wintertime.  I didn’t have the slightest desire to be pulling a pained foot in and out of a winter boot that wasn’t pulling on easy as it was by design.  I do not know why I thought it would be more painful to remove the thing than to keep walking on it and getting that more-than-occasional pinching sensation. Sometimes I would look at my foot – which required the flexibility of a circus contortionist to get it bent up to my other knee – and choose again to do nothing.  Week one after the new dogs were on board all of a sudden I had a window of time to sit at my kitchen table with:  my reading glasses, a magnifying glass, a flashlight for increased, increased, increased visibility, and a sterilized needle.  I could not move the thing embedded in the pad of my foot.  Finally, I broke down and went to a podiatrist who removed …. a teeny, tiny WIRE from my foot.  It was thinner than a wire from a Brillo pad or staple and heaven only knows where I stepped on it … or why I could walk on it for six months.

Ø  His name was Rustle.  He was a snake that decided he would hang out near my back doorway just to freak me out any time he could.  And, no, he wasn’t a gardener snake. I don’t know what he did for a living; I didn’t ask.  I do know he was a PITA snake.  (PITA= Pain in the you-get-the-idea).  Saturday morning, Rustle met Mr. Shovel in the backyard as I channeled all my rage, frustration, and disgust into his core.  I told him twice not to hang around near where my dogs would be.  I meant it.

Ø  Laundry.  Man, is there ever laundry when you are raising pups.  The first two weeks all the old towels your friends and your mother gave you come into play…  that, and when the mother dog jumps on your bed and hurls her breakfast on the comforter, you now have more laundry.

Ø  The rains from Spain did NOT stay mainly on the plain. In the last decade, the springtime in Central New York has become increasingly rainy – to a fault. The first deluge during this litter, I stood at the doorway to the back yard and watched the water pooling around the drain.  It should not have been pooling.  It needed to be swirling.  Pooling, if left long enough, becomes flowing-towards … the back door.  I waited for a break in the rain and walked out there to see an easy fix: remove grass clippings so that the water would drain away.  It did.  Ahhh.

Ø  The strange types of ground cover, three exactly, that began to spread around the perimeter of my house all of a sudden went wild.  The rains did nothing for the hanging pot of petunias, but the stupid ground cover was giving critters like Rustle and Mini Mouse places to hang out.  This is unacceptable.  Finally, after work yesterday, I had a brief window of opportunity to weed-whack so that my house no longer appeared ram shackled. 

Ø  All of a sudden my perfectly good deck has two boards that have unacceptable “give” in them.  That will be next on the fix-it list.

Ø  Then one of my friends told me she "has" six months.  Yeah, that kind of six months. 

If you think about the concept of “emotional load,” and read these things all at once, you understand why it is not just people in 12-step programs have to live ONE DAY AT A TIME.  If you manage what you have immediately in front of you, you survive it.  If you absorb it all simultaneously, you don’t.  I am now thinking that the bad stuff doesn’t happen because the good stuff is present.  The good stuff happens so that you have some inner joy, albeit momentary, to survive the bad stuff that would have happened anyways. 

Will I raise puppies again?  I sure hope so.  I wouldn’t trade those kisses at 4 am for anything in the world!

#########

*Subsequent litter, perhaps in 4 years?  I need to scout a new female for the job in a year or so.

Losing Connery

Losing Connery

I am an absolute humiliation to teenagers when we go to the movies.  I warned my two buddies in advance:  “I am going to cry.”  I brought a little old lady packet of Kleenex so I was ready; but I knew I was going to cry because the movie is about dogs.  Particularly, dogs dying.  Oh, the movie isn’t billed that way.  They make it seem like it is going to be a fun, reincarnation theme of how dogs are dedicated and loyal, and keep helping us even when we think we’ve lost them to crossing the proverbial Rainbow Bridge.  Yes the dog kept his promise to care for “his human.”  And yes there is pathos and action and conflict and love in the movie.  The guy on the radio who gives you the heads-up on the movies that are family-friendly even gave it 3 stars (out of 4, I think).  And as I sat there coping with the second dog death, I mean reincarnation, I had that painful pressure in my lungs that you get from holding back Outright Sobbing and tears streaming down my face, I thought to myself:  What IDIOT thought this was a good movie for small children?!

Having a conversation about “reincarnation and who believes in it and who does not and why” after the movie does not justify the family tension and dysfunctional relationships they drag you through to get there.  This could have been a LifeTime movie, only the man was not the bad guy in this movie, and nobody gets killed by a vengeful ex-wife.  But it was a tribute to the dog, that’s for sure.  If I was a dog, I’m not sure I’d keep running back to the same family drama.

And that leads me to the other side of dogs.  I don’t talk about this on Facebook, so if you are a loyal reader (JB and JGS) and you’ve gotten this far, you may know what is coming.  I want to talk about the hardest part of dog breeding.

In the dog-breeding zone, I have come to wrap my entire arms and soul around the phrase, “out-of-the-woods.”  When you are birthing puppies at home – whether it’s your first litter or fifth – you are always waiting for the day when you yourself start breathing differently and you look at them and think to yourself:  “we are out of the woods now.  They will all make it.”  I long for that day, because the first few hours, days, and weeks of the new puppy’s life is all so tentative.  For the first week, the thought of leaving my home even for an hour makes me slightly nauseous.  I have those weird feelings of, “if I get in an accident and can’t make it home, who will care for my babies?  Who knows them better than I do?  Who knows what they need besides me and their dog-Momma?”  That is not the description of being out of the woods yet, is it?  It is the feeling some human mothers have when they are separated from their babies in the early stages of their relationship.  If a woman did not feel this, I would have other questions to ask.

So this last litter, having assisted Madeline Grace with birthing five quite solid pups, I thought we might be good and not have a lot to worry about.  She birthed on Thursday, and I knew that if we could keep the whelping room toasty for them, and she kept nursing them, most likely things would go well.  But in the back of my mind, I was still aware of the legendary 2-day window:  on Saturday afternoon, I noticed S. Connery moving away from the litter to the corner instead of towards them. I thought he was just confused.  I picked him up and even though the area was about 77 degrees, he felt clammy.

 

A puppy’s natural temperature regulation system is not that great the first week so you really have to keep the area where they are being housed up to the high 70’s.  I was relentlessly monitoring the heating pad, the heating disk, and the portable space heater.  My gosh, it was warm … to Me, who weighs scores more pounds than they do.  Let me tell you quite frankly, this heat-vigilance period is one of the tougher factors about raising puppies.  I sleep on a futon in the room adjacent to them so I can hear every squeak and check them every few hours.  I do not begrudge them the care; I’m just saying again, “When you’re raising dogs, that’s ALL you’re doing is raising dogs.”  They have 100% of my attention.

So at that point I’m holding S. Connery and talking to him and trying to buff him dry with a towel.  I'm wishing his black coat and adorable tan front "boots" would be tucked happily under his mother as I’m holding him near the heater to see if that helps – near, but not too near.  Everything is an exact science.  Madeline is looking at him differently.  I try to read her and pretend that I can’t hear her saying:  “Good luck with that one.”  I promise her I am going to get him warm.  I tuck him under her for a meal and a nap and run out the door to church and to grab Chinese take-out for me.  (I haven’t had a balanced meal or a vegetable in days.)  I am counting on Mother Nature to kick in and for all to be well with our little guy. 

I returned home and I was seeing the same thing with him:  not quite behaving like part of the litter.  Madeline seems to have an emotional wall up.  Something in my brain kicks into gear and I realize he is fading out, albeit slowly.  She had come to terms with it, but I had not.  I call my friend who owns the daddy dog of this litter to tell her and get some input.

“Put him in your bra.  You can save him.”  I don’t know if I was asking her or just remarking, but I responded:  “He’s pooing.”  She replied:  “Good.  Put him in your shirt.”  I wrapped him in a paper towel and tucked him between the mountains.  She walked me through the process of getting a bit of Karo syrup on my fingertip and giving it to him so he would get a boost.  Then, the dreaded words:  “you’re going to have to hand feed him.”  The one thing I stink at.  I believe I uttered the profanity that almost sounds like “ship.”  So with one hand I’m measuring dry puppy formula and mixing it with warm water; with the other hand I’m holding him in place in my shirt.  Periodically, I remove the paper towel he is half-swaddled in and change it.  I talk to him.  I tell him I love him and I need him to make it.  I tell him someone wants him to make their life better.  I tell him how hard I’m trying to do this right, and please don’t inhale the milk.  I am wondering why a country with so many bleeping engineers can’t make a decent hand feeding instrument for puppies – why the little baby bottles that dispense it only with a tight squeeze, or the eye droppers that splash too much in their baby faces make me, an adult woman, want to break down and cry.  The pressure in my head is enormous.  I am regretting the nap I did not take that day because in no way do I feel ready for this endurance exercise. 

I think for a minute of the first litter in my home over seven years ago – this puppy’s grammie dog had a litter of eight and two of them were only four and four-point-five ounces.  They were half the normal weight they should have been.  Comparably, this puppy was nine ounces and had a good start.  I had sat at the same kitchen table and grit my teeth at hand feeding and reviving the other two twice.  They finally passed and I let them go.  It was different, and yet the same, all at once.  Connery had a fighting chance I thought.

The bag of Chinese take-out sat on the counter un-opened for a couple of hours.  My mentor next advised me to get some special nutritional gel for puppies that helps them perk-up.  I sent one of my good friends out to Petco and promised him he could eat Chinese with me when he gets back.  (It would also be stone cold by then… 8 feet away from me on the counter and my brain screaming at how hungry I am, and I am choosing that discomfort so that I can focus on saving this baby.)  He returned with the product, I put a little on my finger tip and gave it to the puppy and try to hand-feed him again.  We began to eat Chinese food.  I became aware of my friend not looking at me while he was eating.  I remarked “I realize it’s weird to eat dinner with a woman who has a dog stuffed down her shirt.”  He smiled politely and continued to eat.  He could see the stress on my face, and left with some sense of having helped me.

I spoke again with my mentor.  She advised me that I would have to feed this little guy every two hours into the night and probably should consider taking him to work on Monday.  My brain began to reel.  I couldn’t imagine how I could try to sleep for a block of time and wake up to try to hand feed him again with this tremendous stress in my head.  I closed my eyes for a moment, I was aware that he was warm – no longer clammy.  I had succeeded in warming him.  He was calm.  I looked down at him with his little chin tucked down so quietly.

He had passed without a whisper.  I thought if I started to cry I would never stop.  So I just never started.  He had given me a gift – he had let me warm him.  He had passed quietly without terror or drama.  Only he and God and Mother Nature knew if just perhaps he had something more serious wrong with him that sent him on this unwanted path.  But for a while, he was loved and he was mine and that was enough.

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