Then My Dog Died
Did you ever think that a puppy which was going to grow into a very large dog was choosing you, and not the other way around. She puppy waddled out of the litter and sat on my feet. We named her Candle, put her in the Mazda and drove her home.
Seventeen years later, Candle lay on her four foot in diameter round downe stuffed comforter bed, unable to get up and having trouble breathing one more breath patiently waiting on me to make up my feeling guilty mind. Her life flashed before me. Seventeen years of life with me makes for a really big dog long run requiem.
This will take some time, and I will take the time it needs to tell the story because Candle was my love life broken heart in a dog suit. The word ‘Euthanasia’ stood between me and Candle’s peace with her dying life.
I will write more during this month of June 2010.
Time passes us all by eventually.
Goodness, here it is already half way through July 2010.
When I was quite ill and in and out of a Virginia hospital, I was not able to get up and down the stairs. Candle seemed to know this. She would park her huge frame at the top or the bottom of the stairs and sit there waiting for me to take her collar and manage the stairs myself with Candle right up against my side. This was when I knew she was there for me, no matter what. What if she had gotten tired one day with the attitude of ‘I just cannot take it anymore’ and decided to euthanasia me? This was a very scarey thought, indeed.
Then years later, I wondered all of this agian when Candle was the one that I could not nor did I have the strength to get her from the house to the garage to the yard for her daily bodily functions. She had been my faithful friend for so long. I felt as though I was not being her faithful friend.
These are difficult sentences to write, even after all these years. Nothing in side of me could say, “She is just one more dog.” So I struggled, put her on a car mechanic’s dolly and rolled her willy nilly into the yard. I would take the hose and clean her butt and return her to her over stuffed round bed.
Around this time, because she was losing her sight, she began to go into attack mode to protect me. Eighty plus pounds of muscle in blind attack mode is a scarey situation indeed. A strong hand and a soothing soft voice seemed to do the trick, but it took a while, certainly longer than my strength to hold her in check. It was then that I knew I had to think of a better way. There wasn’t one. And I was faced with the facts of a dog’s life.
It was a cold and wet January morning. Paul found a vet who would let us drive up in the truck and come out to the truck and put Candle down, in the vet-speak manner. So we put the Candle bed in the back end of the ‘94 Ford Ranger work truck. Paul carried Candle to the truck bed and put her in. I crawled into the back with her. I wore my aged old Virginia seen its day full length fur coat. We tied a rope to Candle’s collar and through the back window to Paul in the driver’s seat. We had read that in fear an animal would cause them bolt and leap with super animal strength. We had the addition of a near blind super strength dog with us.
We covered every base we could think of at the moment. Two old people and one old dog wrapped in an old fur coat tied into the bed of an old Ford truck started down the road in a cold January, Texas , misty, icy rain. Candle was half in her bed and half in my lap. The other half of me was half in her bed with her.
Writing this has not made it any easier to remember.
THE VET: The Missouri City, Texas Vet was a kind and gentle man with a kind and gentle nurse. (I have known many who were not–believe me, I have.) Since he was also a large animal vet and used to doing the really big hard things in life on the open road, he was ready for our own drive by euthenasia first time adventure. They were kind and understanding. He was amazed at Candle’s healthy, shiney coat; and said so. I felt uneasy telling him that she had never ever had a dog bath. I thought they were bad for big hunting dogs. Well, except for the time this 80 pound water spanial long legged deer dog crawled into the bath tub with me, looking for a loose duck or something. There were other times, like when she pulled Zeb into the lake in January in Virginia. The missing agitive here is COLD. Our friend Richard put his new toy power boat running at full boar into the lake. Candle lept into the lake with Zeb on her leash now propelled prone and flying behind her. Candle returned Richard’s new Christmas present to him gently held between her teeth still towing air born Zeb. Candle probably was thinking that was the fastest and toughest duck she ever caught.
Yes, Candle would think. I had experience watching her think. I had knee surgery and could not get up and down the stairs. Candle would sit a the top or bottom of the stairs and wait for me to take hold of her collar and she would step by step get me up the stairs between her and the railing. One day I went to the the top of the stairs and stood there like some lame sheep. She lay on the sofa in her favorite Queen of England pose, as if to say, I think you can do this on your own now. And so I did.
Then it came my time in Karma to get really sick and suddenly shipped out to emergency and then ICU at MCV Hospital in Virginia. Candle had laid in the sofa on my feet clear up to my lap and not moved for three days. Dogs can smell death in the doorway. She seemed to me to be standing in the way of Dr. Death. Do not ever forget that. I cannot. Zeb said that she took to laying in the entry way at the bottom of the stairs until I returned just over one week later from ICU. And yes, from the hospital, I talked to her on the phone just like a good parent would do for a loyal child.
I know these are not the words to say at this moment in writing, but somewhere in my mind I looked at Candle as though she were human first and dog second.
A human in a dog suit.
My life progressed, as all lives do. I married Paul and moved to Houston. Upon leaving the Richmond Virginia house I looked at Candle and said, “Zeb is going to bring you to me in Houston”. I had seen dogs and sheep and deer and pet calves in the the air-crates and I just could not put my tired old human dog through those paces. They had to have a run of Vet Shots and $400.00 and little care. This was a job for car care, not air freight care.
Less than three months later, after waiting on warmer than February traveling air, Zeb cranked up the old Mazda. Together, man and beast, dog food, water, What-a-Burgers and coffee drove half way across the continent to the coastal waters of Texas and Candle was with me once again. Both Candle and Zeb fell out of the car onto the cool Houston grass and lay there, exhausted, together for the good part of the rest of the day. I gladly provided curb service. And cleaned out the car. Candle knew to make friends with Paul and Paul knew the same thing. Once, early in the still dark of morning I heard Paul talking kindly to her and asking her if she had a good night’s sleep. You do not nor will you ever know the peace that brought to me and my mind. So she had Paul and a yard all her own, she slept in my art room, where she had always slept, smelling my last painting. She was with familiar objects and smells and people. You know, home never really ever changes, no matter how many times you move it. My Nomade Railroad parents taught me that.
Paul and I had Candle for two more years. Her condition deterioted. Slowly at first, little things. More and more blindness and ever slowing movement and responces. I would sit in the garage or the back yard, or the art room or the sunny den windows or the entry patio and just watch the enevitable happen before my eyes.
Then is was January again. Cold, rainy January. Paul and I took Candle to the Large Animal Vet.
I will always know that she knew. I cannot write this sentence after all these years and not cry. Guilt never leaves. I was helping. I was gulty. And now I know just how long this saga can hang on in the human/animal relationship.
Filed under euthanasia | Comment (0)Death of an Old Vyking: Requiem
THE DAY THE CACTUS DIED: It is the last week in March 2010,
So the sailing Vyking and his Valkyrie now find themselves on the rolling prairie seas of
In my memory of them, they have always been a part of each other and always there for the other with all the same ins and outs that free thinking modern couples have. They lived life to the limit and then some. They, together, have always been there for the other guy. I see them as together because I have never know them any other way.
Each of us has a story to tell. There was day in 1982, I was one of those other ones that they reached out to and offered a hand up to a better life. All of you have stories to tell and all the stories are worth the telling.
The Vyking closed the log book on his life and his story:
Set the Mainsul: Made way for
We stand on the shores of life, wave goodbye and say, “Well done, David, well done. Farewell, my friend, farewell.”
We humans all stand at a bedside and wait with baited breath to hear the last words of dying. We seek not for them, but for ourselves, some message to be told us from the Other Side that we could take hold of and walk away with courage and insight for all the trials and sorrows to come.
David’s words were three sentences spread out over the last two days.
David looked at Gaynelle and said,“We had a good run, didn’t we.”
Change The World
Remember when—not so very long ago—the streets of Chicago
were filled with fair skinned white boys and girls
convinced to the death to save the world—“We Will Change The World”.
Remember when those vibrant young people burned the Stars & Bars.
The girls burned their bras and panties.
The boys burned their draft cards.
The runners ran to Amsterdam, Canada, destinations unknown.
Shots rang out one sunny day:
“Four Dead In Ohio” it was “The Day The Music Died”.
Un-lucky Lyndon lay across his Oval Office Desk
Cried out to the surrounding Pentagon Polished Brass:
NO MORE BULLETS! NO MORE BULLETS!
One by one the trigger happy leaders of military creeds
Slithered backward out the Oval Office doors
into the halls lined with Lobbyist of American Greed.
Echos ever fainter followed nipping at their heels;
Disempowering their amputated trigger fingers;
NO MORE BULLETS—No More Bullets…no more bullets…………………
Once again our streets are filled with young people;
Different in heritage and ideas; attempting to change their world.
Who knows but what it was us who taught them how to mistreat
OLD GLORY!
History is a circle that rolls through time and writes the story in blood.
NO MORE BULLETS! No More Bullets……………..no more bullets………………
Sometimes a girl just has to write: Gaylee
Filed under Political | Comment (0)The Fairy Tale Mind
No matter the age, a child at heart is a gift from the universe to the planet.
Movie suggestion: UP.
A dose a day for a month. Start your adventure because this is probably your only fly-by. It is never too late to tie balloons to your heart.
“It Is Never Too Late To Live Happily Everafter”. Good Luck!!
Filed under Attitude | Comment (0)Can’t Stop Smoking
So you just cannot stop smoking.
You are now behind the building or at the trash bins.
Lamp posts and corners are outlawed.
Your friends and family gripe about ‘that smell’ in your car.
What is a civilized man of power and prominence going to do???
Have you thought about spraying yourself and your car with Febreze? Seriously, have you?
WELL, TRY THIS !!
Google: Dr. Paul E. Malone, Ph.D.
Accidental Hypnosis for Smoking-On Myself!
Filed under Hypnotize | Comment (0)Lost & Found
LOST & Found!!!!! In my closet, on a shelf pushed way back along with the long black half slip that has also been missing was THE GIRAFFE dress. No one, at this moment, is more surprised than ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a secret that I have discovered. When I left my brother’s house this past ‘09 Christmas weekend, the mystery just left. I gave up the search and counted it all for lost. I figured that when I had my annual post Christmas cleaning spree, I must have tossed it and the slip along with it. By this time, I have been searching for three plus months.
When I give up, what I am searching for turns up.
I think this is one of those secrets that few ever discover. I have to learn this over and over. Every time something comes up missing, I forget the secret and search myself crazy, then I give up, then it turns up.
EVERY TIME. I do not know who/what is the dumber in this equation: Me or the Searching.
This past Sunday evening I lost my Bloody Mary with extra Mary: just fixed and not one sip gone, but the drink was gone! I searched (of course), because I forgot my secret. Monday morning there it was sitting in Paul’s captain’s chair in the guest room. We did not even have guests. I sat down in the chair, before breakfast, and DRANK it.
Rejoice with me, seven in the morning and a double Bloody Mary is not half bad.
Of course, this secret law of finding also applies to locating a good wife or husband or partner. Give it a shot.
Now, should you forget your automobile and or your name, maybe you should seek help rather than allow both to just turn up on their own time. (all hard and fast laws are not hard nor are they fast).
On another note: I bought “DUMA KEY” when it first came out. I promptly lost the two inch thick hardback. I looked everywhere. Then on a day when I was in major pain and also drugged up on the prescribed cure–The Book Turned Up. So things and people do turn up in a timely manner.
Excellent mystery novel to read for budding artists with chronic pain in crisis no matter how old you are.
“DUMA KEY” by Stephen King
Filed under Aging | Comment (0)THE IDES OF MARCH 2010
Wow!!! I do not think I have ever missed a month of writing at least something. If I don’t jump in quickly, I will totally miss both The Ides and The Winds Of March. SOOOO!
Texas March Wind caught me unprepared yesterday at the gas pump.
I opened up the car-door to begin the process of filling the tank. The wind pinned me between the door and the pump. The Buick door had become a sailing Spinnaker. The car, now in park position, actually moved. I managed to complete the job of filling up the tank and shoving myself back into the car still against the wind.
Still working on the IDES.
On my personal Ides of March 2002 my long lost sweetheart and I signed our belated (by 42 years) marriage certificate in Richmond Virginia. My thought was ‘what a significant Greek day to be signing an agreement like this one.’
Paul and I smiled at each other: nothing can go wrong at the forum today.
At age sixty two even if something did go wrong there would not be enough time left in our lives for it to hurt anyone for very long. So we walked out of the courthouse and went to purchase rings and rent tuxedoes to attest to our signed certificate. I took Paul’s name, because in 1958-9 that is what we would have done. There were no hyphens in the ’50s. Two days later we stood before a home designed alter complete with a prayer kneeling cloth and a priest, who, with prior authority, had moved The James River north so he could officiate the wedding ceremony in his newly expanded Episcopal jurisdiction. After the ceremony, Father Boston Lackey moved The James back down south to the original flow charted path. We all laughed and called him Moses. We wrote our names and the date into the mid 17th Century edition of The Marriage Book. Eighty plus good folks, friends and family milled around, ate well, shot the potato cannon at the pine trees, listened to Dr. Schlobaum’s excellent piano with flute and snare-drum and violin with two extra singers and pianist to finish out the band. It was a St. Patrick’s Day Sunday Bash talked about for many a month afterwards.
That was eight years ago, and that makes April our first whole month of NEW BEGINNINGS. It takes eight years to settle into each other. I see we are now over half way through April. We both turn seventy; Paul in March and April for me.
What happened after that day in Richmond, Virginia is another story altogether. The dream and the reality often do not meet at the end of the road in harmony.
But: That is another story.
Filed under friendship | Comment (0)Global Warming
Global Warming is freezing my butt off. My ten foot tall six tropical cactus plants were specimens of phenomenal beauty for all passers-by to admire. Now they are shriveled with drooping branches to the trunk which is now the color of tainted old molded pea soup. This is SOUTH TEXAS for goodness sake. Evidently the tropics never have arctic temperatures three nights in a row. Thirteen degrees is a real cactus killer. They all survived IKE. They did not survive the Jet Stream dipping low over Texas in January. My next cactus garden will be on wheels.
Filed under Weather | Comment (0)The State of the Union 2010
America still is not ready to free any of her slaves. We talk about it; which simply means we talk a lot. The misuse of stimulus funds has only one problem: Red, Yellow, Black, Brown and White recipients of the stimulus packages are equal in the amount of malice, greed, and gain they share. We are all equal of graft, miss-use of funds, pork politics, greed, private gain and public malice.
It goes something like this: If I don’t get my way, neither will you.
There is no Wall Street. There is no Main Street. Who thought that one up?
There is only Gutter Street. We are equal in one way only: We are all on the Same Street. When push comes to shove it is every color for self.
We are not united. We are simply ground-tether-trained. When the command ’stay’ ceases to have meaning, we will have anarchy.
A Camelot Castle first enslaves the owner.
Food, raiment, and shelter do not define the man. A silk clad herring still smells like a herring. Who said that first?
As far as smells go, when mankind’s bodies burn in the fire we all smell like a pork barbecue. No wonder our best skin and organ replacement donor is the lowly Porky Pig. Our own aphorisms go something like this: Smells like a Pig. Sleeps in his own shit, just like a Pig. Eats like a Pig. Fat as a Pig. Stupid as a Pig. Breeds like a Pig. Squeals like a Pig. A Pig in a poke.
We evolved from Pigs. Monkeys are higher up in the gene pool.
But the real winner is: Pork Barrel Politics. Scrape off the top layer of each and every one of us on the planet and find out that we are all pork pink.
I am sick and tired of posturing over stuffed spongy fat old white men reared back in governmental positions with smirks on their faces looking every bit like Big Daddy trying to tell me what the truth is; what I really need; who I am and…………………………………..ad infinitus.
All the while their select lackey lobbyist weasel on the floor placing dollars at their feet. Who are these people anyway?
Last night there was a room full of reared back Big Daddies. Barffff!
Every King’s Court needs an honest Jester Joker.
Where is Eddy Murphy?
Filed under Political | Comment (0)Old Is For Humans
I wake up in pain, do all my work that I do everyday. The pain never stops unless I lie back down in a perfectly flat position. Then my mind hurts because nothing is getting done.
If this is Arthritis then everyone who has it needs to be in a hospice. It is no wonder that the majority of aging humans that I see have a grim determined look on their faces that appears to be chiseled into their countenance. Which is exactly what it is: They are doing their best to do that which needs to be done on a daily basis and more importantly, complete the work.
It is Saturday. I have cooked, served, eaten and cleaned up breakfast for Paul and myself.
It is 11:36am. by the computer clock. I need a nap.
Yesterday Paul power sawed the remainder of the tree donated by Hurricane IKE. He finished the job, and he was taxed to the limit of his endurance. His comment was, “I will not be walking on the treadmill this evening.” Do you see what I mean? He had to work that hard to justify not doing what he does every day. He turned his chiseled determined face toward the shower and clean clothes.
I need a nap. For the Houston area, it is cold. I am cold. I have lost one of my favorite fuzzy black long warm socks, so I have on the one and will continue to look for the other, if it takes the remained of the day. If I don’t keep the one I have on my foot, I will forget what I am looking for and never find the other sock.
After my nap from exhausting myself serving breakfast, I will put on my determined chiseled face and continue the search. Paul thinks I look funny.
Our blood pressure is up because we need the extra air to turn the next page in our lives.
Happy January, 2010.
Filed under Aging | Comment (0)