Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Before I moved to Montana, I lived in San Juan Capistrano; was born and raised in Pasadena and spent every summer in Newport Beach, California.  We went to dinner at El Cholo and California Pizza Kitchen.  We supped on clam chowder at the Crab Cooker.  Enjoyed fresh seafood and sizzling steaks at any number of popular eateries on Pacific Coast Highway.  If on the drive home we spotted a dead cat or dog on the road, we lamented for the pet owner and wondered how long it would take for Southern California coyotes to scavenge.  Skunks only warranted pinched nostrils, since not even coyotes wanted those.

Now I live in Montana, and when company’s coming, I need no longer travel from my cabin in the woods thirty miles over dirt roads and across open highway to Missoula to the market, where I pay a high price for gourmet groceries organically grown and locally farm fed. 

            Legislation that cleared the state Senate in March, if it gets a nod from the governor, will allow me the pick of any animal dead on the road.  On one condition:  The “Roadkill bill”  (HB 247) points out that the bear, elk, deer, or mountain lion I heave into the open hatchback of my Toyota 4Runner has to have been accidentally slain.  Where’s the sport in that?

              Something tells me “accidental” might be rather difficult to prove, providing I can negotiate a speedy escape from the scene of the alleged crime so I have enough time to scour the front bumper before my dinner guests arrive. 

            I needn’t be concerned with spoilage in the winter months that boast high temperatures of -12 degrees, but summer here is bit trickier, and determining time of death will be left to the discretion of the scavenger.  A picky eater, I am not partial to scraping up the remains of a fawn that has qualified as carcass for a long hot day in the sun.  How will I know at the next neighborhood potluck that Sally with the slow cooker filled to the brim with “meat stew” didn’t?

            The problem with my serving such repast is that I will undoubtedly have to taste it before deeming it entrée-worthy.  Last summer an adult blue heron with the wing span of a 747 slammed into my front windshield, rolled across the roof of the car, and bounced hard behind me on the highway, leaving a wake of bloody innards and feathers that no windshield washer could address.  I wonder; with a little salt and paprika, could it have passed for chicken?  What’s more, if I dish up I-90 deer I will necessarily have to gobble down my ill-got game, right along with my guests… or suddenly claim vegan. 

            Another reason for the governor to cap his pen is the additional road hazard.  Now I not only have to swerve for darting wildlife but also when the other housewife having unexpected houseguests swerves to kill rather than to avert.  I can see state budget dollars being dedicated to the required highway sign:  “Caution!  Roadkiller Crossing!”

Still, I choose to look at the advantages:  This bill could well be the solution to supermarket shopping stress, not to mention easy on the pocketbook.  The “Roadkill bill” could be the answer to the chipmunk and squirrel plague I face in the spring and summer, since there are bound to be a serious number of “accidental deaths” on my driveway during that time. 

It also addresses the squander of perfectly usable meat, so before everyone riles up to white-hot rage over my apparent flippancy, let me say that I don’t begrudge anyone else the bounty.  In an era wherein most of us toss enough leftover food into the trash bin to feed another family, it is indeed laudatory that the food bank can provide additional meals before the vultures hover.  As a friend of mine commented when she read about the law, “Waste not; want not.  Although I want not to eat it.”

At the very least, this legislation would put a crimp on the Montana hunting culturist’s twist on the original constitutional purpose for the right to bear arms.  How futile to argue against gun control based on the need to be properly armed for deer, bear, and elk seasons!  Who needs a gun when you’ve got your truck?

Depending on which way the bill bounces, I plan to invite the governor to my house for a campaign fundraiser dinner.

On Becoming a Grandmother

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”  Isaiah 43:18-19

           

“Christmas came early for us!” my youngest daughter Kate exclaimed while holding up a Santa Claus onesie at the Missoula airport when she and her husband arrived last holiday.  She had taken three pregnancy tests that morning, just before boarding the plane—a trio of positive in result.

            After a spurt of joyful tears and effusive remarks followed by hugs all around, it began to sink in:  My baby is having a baby. 

            I was a worrier-mother, as was the woman who bore me.  Do I tell Kate about the recurring nightmare (to this day, my girls having celebrated their 29^th and 28^th birthdays I occasionally have it) that baby is tumbling from a balcony and I can’t reach her?  I decide not to; she is basking in that glorious moment, long before you realize your life is irrevocably altered.  You will never, ever be the same. 

            I want her to prepare herself for the intense devotion that will emanate from every pore and consume her—a love so fierce and a heart so full, you feel your chest will explode.  She thinks she has loved this way before, but I know better.

            I know she cannot yet comprehend unstoppable surrender—not even with ample warning—until she lays eyes on her child for the very first time.  Only then, and after inch-by-inch growth, first haircut, broken friendship, and every trip to the pediatrician will ferocious devotion strike her to the bone.  What she would do to spare her innocent the heartache of life’s hurdles will be a list so long she cannot recite it. 

Only when she delivers her child to the classroom door on the first day of school will she realize that she has lost herself entirely to another.  When something hurts that innocent heart, that is when will she be ambushed by such desperate tenderness as to dissolve her.  After her teenager pulls out of the driveway, car packed to the gills and pointed toward the college dorm she will feel a seizure of irrepressible longing to turn back time and cradle that babe behind the steering wheel.  As soon as she watches her little girl skip from the church on the arm of a husband throwing mama a kiss through the rice and confetti, will her soul overflow with future for them both while at the same time feeling—wait a minute—there has been a mistake, an accidental amputation here; my limb that should still be attached… is missing. 

It is hard, when you love so hard.

            Yet, she will never regret this price to pay--the letting go--for creating a life at the cost of her own.  Not for one single, solitary second. 

            As for becoming a grandmother?  This is the ultimate recovery, the finding of myself again—although not the very same limb I lost, another that can attach and help me walk as if it were my own. 

My own mother told me, after accompanying me to the hospital where my oldest daughter, Clary, age two, required the surgical implant of ear tubes to avert excess Eustachian congestion, “I promised myself I would not care like this again.”  She’d spilled so much into her own children that by the time I birthed her grandchildren any possible reserves had been sapped.  She simply couldn’t imagine finding enough space in the chambers of her brimming heart for such volume, not even one more time.  “But here I am,” her voice faltered as she reached to grip my hand in the waiting room, “caring, just the same.”

            “I am here,” I tell my Kate.  No matter the passage of time that callously ticks off milestones meant to move us forward, I am irrepressibly drawn to look back from whence I came, forever her mother.  And yet, every time my soul aches to have it all back again, God whispers to “forget the former things; I am doing a new thing!  Do you not perceive it?” 

Undiminished simply because I have reached that decade in life where it was fairer weather yesterday than it will likely be tomorrow, I have come to the place where the baby I once bore is her own person, separate and apart from me and soon to become herself a mother.  I will hear that whisper and let go of my little girl’s hand in order to touch the fingers of her newborn child, who will move me with promise to look forward. 

I will be made something new, all right.  Something very, very grand.

Spring (and Cattle) is in the Air

I am devoted to my daily constitutional—a walk of varying lengths up and down the dirt roads that etch the hills of the Ninemile Valley.  Frankly, it’s how I stay sane.

“How can you stand the winters?” old friends from California ask.

“I walk.”

“Don’t you get lonely out there in the woods?” ask Missoula acquaintances, who live in the relative hustle and bustle of town.

I frequent a more natural society here, and one where conversations aren’t about contentious topics like the Sequester cuts or guns (Well, I might have mentioned guns to a bear I crossed paths with last autumn).  When I call out to horses, some by name, they trot on over for a stroke on the muzzle, no need for reassurance beyond that.  Dogs hearken to my approach and tear down driveways, cognizant that the pouch fastened around my waist holds a pocket full of pet store promises.  Deer leap from brush to dash right in front of me, and I respect antlers and girth when I stand back to allow stray elk to follow in the footsteps of the rest of their herd.  Surrounded by such animate creation, whether atop snowdrift or under big sunshine…how could I be lonely?

In winter I strap on spikes to formidable boots or fasten snowshoes before heading out the back door.  In summer and fall, I am fleeter of foot, sporting lightweight tennis shoes.  Spring is that in-between “mud” season but the one wherein, on drier days, I finally get to remove heavy footwear and taste the freedom.  On those days, burdensome winter at my back, I feel as if I could fly.

            Friday I tromped purposefully as usual, breezing past my neighbor’s corral fences while breathing in the fresh, clear air.  Here in Montana, I could tell you the season blindfolded.  Today, spring is just around the corner; there is cattle in the air.

            Some take offense to the bovine odor.  Like with horses, one cannot ignore their distinguishable scent.  And as it is with horses, I actually like the aroma.  I enjoy hearing the low moan of mama cows as they surround their baby calves to nurse them.  Maybe it’s because I am an incurable parent who will nurture anything that moves, but the sight and sound and smell of them bring out the maternal in me.

            On this particular Friday, I couldn’t help but notice one of the calves, isolated from the herd, no mother ship in sight.  Number 71 (christened on the ear tag) was tucked into a corner and smashed up against the fence, reminding me of when my own daughter used to do this in her crib—spot a sidewall and burrow into it as if it were the womb wall.

            I slowly approached, a newborn of any species being entirely irresistible.  Gingerly, I reached through the barbed wire and allowed the calf to take in the residual scent of lavender lotion on the back of my hand.  Unfazed by my presence, the soft eyes gazed into mine.  I took the liberty to touch the top of its head, still stiff-coated and spiky-haired ala salon-gel from its recent entrance into the world.  I spoke soothingly to wee Number 71, and then moved on.

            Saturday I followed my route to see the very same sight.  I stopped in my tracks and repeated the prior day’s petting ritual.  Now I began to worry: Was the baby ill?  Had there been any movement since yesterday?  Did its mother abandon it, refusing to nurse? 

            That afternoon, I confessed my fear to my husband.

            “I saw that little calf too, when I drove past, and wondered if it was all right,” he said.  Now I really was concerned.

            Day three, I set out, fully intending to contact my neighbor if I saw the calf in the same spot again.  I huffed and puffed and picked up my pace to an aerobic high until I reached the nesting corner.  Nothing.  A good sign or a bad omen? 

            Each time I pass by the herd, I scan the crowd, squinting in an attempt to read a sea of distant ear tags.  These last few days, they are too distant and clear digits elude me.  

I know this rancher; he is up and moving in darkness.  He doesn’t slide closed the barn door until long after sunset.  All the livelong day, he tends to the needs of his dependents.  I watch the familiar truck barrel up and down our road, delivering hay or watering, driven by a young man, vigilant and energetic.  I trust my buddy is at this very moment either reunited with mother’s milk or nestled in the barn, sucking sweet sustenance.

Still, I am not one to forget a friend—not even a brand new one, and one whose only name is a number.  Until spring is over and the cattle give passage to summer, I will keep watch for 71.

Do Not Pass “Go” Until You Choose Your Token!

Never mind voting for or against tax increases or gun laws.  I hear Hasbro Toys, the makers of Monopoly, is polling the public on their opinion: Which game token bites the dust and what will be its replacement?

           

The emails are running rampant among my extended family, for one, as I imagine they are flying through cyberspace among millions of others.  What summer was complete without that game board splayed across the family room table for days on end while the fate of each neighborhood was determined?  I do wonder how Hasbro rationalizes the political correctness of Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues having only the “Go” intersection separating them from better times.  But larger issues like bailouts and equal opportunity is not what this election is about.

All of us in the family have our preferences, and there was inevitably a moment of frenzy at the onset of each new contest in the choosing of one’s “man,” although a human icon was never an option.  If superhero legs couldn’t carry you, the ability to mimic movement across town and when breaking out of jail was essential to a feeling of empowerment, whether or not victory followed.  Hence, the race car (a speedy choice indeed), the wheelbarrow (considered even faster than a battleship), and the Scotty dog were generally the first to be fisted.

The car was flashy if you parked in the garage of Boardwalk and Park Place, and walking your Scotty on Pennsylvania Avenue undeniably secured your social status.  Another of my cousins held out his top hat whenever collecting rent from a pauper going bankrupt, and the wheelbarrow?  If it was the only piece left when the tokens were nabbed, at least you could tote hotels, one at a time to draw out the suspense, to spread on newly purchased properties.  

When I opened my inbox—for pertinent family eyes only—to read my cousin’s urging that we carefully consider and let every voice be heard regarding this new national development, I was pulled back in time to remember that long ago, once upon a time when we were innocents, there was a horse and a cannon that tripped around the board, both ousted and replaced without so much as a blink, let alone our input.  But that was back in the dark ages of the cereal box top contest, pre-Facebook era; now garnering worldwide public opinion comes with the mere tap of a computer key.  I tip my Top Hat token to Hasbro for their savvy shift from autocracy to democracy, not to mention their capitalizing on the current American hunger to vote for something that doesn’t polarize political parties.

            

The controversy might initiate a family feud, however.  My first cousin wants to see the battleship removed as a peacekeeping gesture (Thank God there never existed a nuclear warhead).  She is partial to the iron, LA Times blogger Joseph Serna’s elimination vote, although in my lifetime I’ve never seen her use a real one.  In its place, she roots for the Kitty Cat, one of the options that include a robot, a diamond ring, a helicopter or an electric guitar. 

            

I personally don’t see the point to the ring or the guitar, not that the current thimble makes much sense, although seamstress-would-be-realtors out there might disagree.  At least a gamer more homemaking than I can lift a kitchen curtain hem or take in a dress seam while awaiting their turn to monopolize the market.

           

I argue from a sensate viewpoint that the helicopter blade is too sharp—not a friendly feel on the fingers—as is the pointy battleship (I’ll tell my cousin I’m a dove).  Once I removed a splinter with mine while reading a Chance card, a situation the federal government safety board couldn’t condone!  But I remind myself, back to the smaller issue.  Besides, helicopters are passé.  Too slow, and they introduce the notion of government surveillance—far right Republicans will never go for that.

             

So, Hasbro, get rid of the battleship and give us the robot—the quintessential au courant rags-to-riches companion.  A tribute, perhaps, to the companionable and ecologically minded WALL-E?  I’m sure the issue of recycling added to a Community Chest endeavor cannot be far behind.

Of course, once we have a robot at our fingertips, will we still need the iron or the thimble?

END

 Kathleen Clary Miller is the author of three books available on Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/author/millerkathleenclary:  "The Man in My Mailbox," "Gone Fishing--My New Life in the Last Best Place," and "When Forgetting is a Gift--Placing My Father in an Alzheimer's Facility."

Rose-Colored Glasses

My parents lived in the same Pasadena home for forty-three years, just across the Colorado Bridge from the quintessential corner, the one where all the television cameras monitored the sweeping turn of giant floats and marching bands of the world-famous Rose Parade.

I was a Tournament of Roses brat.

 Every January 1, I was on the pivotal cusp where I held my breath as each man-made extravaganza cascading with fresh flowers approached the intersection where they make the turn. Every float’s path was negotiated by a human driver located deep within the bowels of the engine-propelled vehicle disguised as an entire village, a fire-breathing dragon, or a lovely, but dull, unanimated nature scene. 

Would the castle tower of floral seeds and foliage maneuver the corner without leveling bleachers or demolishing signal lights? Had the third drummer from the left in the second to the last row fallen out of step? I challenged each city orchestra’s prowess by pointing a finger to make a straight line, then carefully measuring to see if they were still on track while rounding the bend.

 I was the casual critic for whom it had all come too easily. Had I been deprived of Rose Parade access or forced by circumstances beyond my control to struggle to attend, it might have meant more to me; I might have made a New Year’s resolution to be even better behaved than I already was so my parents might purchase me a ticket. As it was, my attitude on the first day of the rest of my life was pampered; I had been born privileged: I lived in Pasadena on this day of the grandest of all parades.

 I was not the only one. There were scads of girls who pictured themselves as Rose Queen, this being the only aspect of the glory that held no fascination for me. Although it remained an unspoken topic between us, I knew that my mother would have reveled in my becoming the crowned jewel of her town and I was sorry to disappoint her, but I irrevocably passed up my one chance for two hours and fifteen minutes of internationally-televised float fame.

 When I was at Mayfield all-girls high school behind the iron gates of a Catholic convent, just the right age to be considered, our family dentist indicated that he was on the board of directors who chose the queen for a day. If I would only let him hypnotize me rather than use Novocain, just so he could test this new approach to pain-free dentistry, he could all but assure me the crown. Naïve as a nun, my reticence had nothing to do with the fact that a dentist my father’s age wanted to render me unconscious in the reclining chair while running through the parameters for Rose Queen qualification.

 “Of course, you’d have to cut your hair,” he muttered as a barely audible aside.

 Cut my hair? At last unhinged from its grammar-school ponytail, I now had the hair the Beach Boys sang songs about: long, straight, and naturally golden-blonde. But among the many strict-propriety Tournament of Roses regulations was the hairdo code: each member of the chosen court was required to top off her fetching figure with a short, chin-length bob. Sorry for the tiny thorn, Dr. Boyd, but in that case, I was clearly not cut for Rose Royalty.

 No matter, there were plenty who were. Girls clawed their way to the top as their mothers dashed to Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, seeking the right outfits and accessories for the elimination process that began early in October and ended in November. The street outside the winner’s house would be painted with flowers and chalked with hearts and congratulatory messages—sort of an upscale TP job.

Every year, I arose at dawn after a New Year’s Eve with relatives and friends who unfurled their sleeping bags and covered every bed and sofa in our New England style house. We all retired uncharacteristically early, some even right after dinner under the dining room table. My older brother Billy got to sleep out overnight on the patch of grass by our seats. Jealousy raged within me, as Mama would never permit “such silly nonsense” for her little girls.

By the time I was old enough to sleep out, the allure of crashing on the ground in the cold had faded. We walked the route the day before. There was television coverage, there were marshmallow-throwing contests, high school and college kids lolling in their sleeping bags.

 I was a Tournament of Roses trust-fund baby, my future year-openers were secured and in the bank. I’d never have to fend. Hence, I was unprepared when it didn’t last—everyone grew up, sadly. Oh, my mother ordered me tickets, even with a few extra for friends, but we were talking bleachers now. Among the masses, I didn’t feel so special. Like so many other things, the parade became more complex as the years passed: Over a million people still attended from around the world, but that world had become touchier.

The last time I went, an overabundance of security hampered my formerly-breezy access to a cushioned seat in the stands. Monty Montana was no longer on horseback, and ominous stealth bombers swooped over the heads of the crowd. The float-technology was so advanced they could have easily transformed the parade into an amusement park at the end of its five-mile run. My nearby Pasadena status had slipped since moving south. It would have been a hideous freeway battle to get there. The effort was insurmountable. Drive and park? You had to be kidding.

 Instead, I attended church service on New Year’s Eve and went to bed by ten. In the morning, I rose in time for the parade and brewed my coffee in the hills. Many of my neighbors were Los Angeles transplants, but few had enjoyed the Pasadena parade location I had been privy to. When I told people where I’d grown up, they rolled their eyes and nodded their heads in tacit understanding. How could you keep me down on the farm after I’d seen that corner for forty-five years? But they didn’t carry the connection to the old streets, the intoxicating perfume of over half-a-million blossoms in the pre-dawn air, the celebratory sound of the bands practicing I had once heard from my second-story childhood window as I drifted off to sleep.

 In my new home, I prepared hot chocolate so we could all gather around the TV. I built an early-morning fire in the fireplace, curled up on the sofa, and observed the festivities alone. My teenagers slept until noon, having partied hearty. But no matter how hard I tried, my mind wandered. It just wasn’t working for me anymore.

 You see, I had smelled the roses.

Critics of Aviophobics are for the birds

“I can’t stand to fly; I’m not that naïve. Men weren’t meant to ride with clouds between their knees.”   Superman lyrics, by Five For Fighting.

 When the conversation turns to “If you could be anyone, who would you be?” my response is “John Madden.”

 Male heads turn: Since when does a woman want to be a football coach? It’s not what they think. I want his motor coach.

 If I say “Aretha Franklin” it is erroneously assumed I want to sing Soul. Nope!  I want to be blessed with her wheels-on-the-ground mode of transportation.

 Both of these well-known people number among my heroes…because they were always afraid to fly. And admitted it.

 If what I just read is true, that Luke Skywalker himself (Mark Hamill) won’t take to the sky, why should I? He flat out refuses to fly and instead takes the train. The force is clearly not with him, and he knows it. Whoopie Goldberg will not board an airplane. Like Madden, she rides her personal bus to get to gigs. She is excused, of course, because she’s funny.

 On the other hand, I am ordinary—not funny enough, not talented enough, and certainly not the lead in “Star Wars.” I prefer to walk or drive on planet earth because my feet, or wheels, need at all times to be planted on it. Terra-Firma is my middle name.

 Like Madden, Franklin, Goldberg, and Skywalker, I suffer from Aviophobia (yes, it’s legitimized with a name) the affliction misjudged a weakness rather than what it is—common sense. Merely fear. It’s really nobody’s business and no big deal.

 And because I am not famous, I am not excused. My trepidation is considered a fault rather than an interesting quirk of my personality. Most irritatingly, despite the fact that I’m not seeking repair everyone wants to fix me.

 “Can’t you just take a pill?” people ask me as if I have spoiled the party for the rest of the world population because I don’t want to float around 30,000 feet in the air. Yeah, I can. But on board is not the only problem. Actually, once strapped in my seat, I surrender and go into a coma without the need for medication to slide me into one. I am one of those (I know the rest of you are out there!) who would have to start popping those babies from the moment the rumblings of a discussion about a flight reservation began. I’d have to live on whatever is the current trendy form of Valium, just in case someone said, “Let’s go to Hawaii next fall!” and since I only travel by choice, for vacation, why put myself through hell for a Mai Tai I could have right here in my own living room?

 “You’re claustrophobic,” some folks conclude. No.

 “Do you have a fear of heights?” others ask. Not especially.

 “It’s about needing to be in control. You’re probably always the one to drive the car, too,” most assume. That’s not it either.

 Let’s keep this as simple as it really is: I’m good when I’m grounded. Lord knows I’ve tried. I’ve flown to Europe three times with my family, the first two times so I wouldn’t be the spoiler who doesn’t go on the trip, the third, to bury my mother’s ashes in Ireland and not infect my own daughters with their mother’s fear. Boldly, for 50 years I looked what I knew to be imminent destruction in the eye and braved the unfriendly skies. Unlike my mother who sat next to me fingering rosary beads and whispering novenas all the way from LAX to Charles de Gaulle, I was the mother who bestowed the ultimate gift on her children. I remained cool and casual. No screaming, no gripping seat handles, no prayer book, not so much as the drumming of fingers on the tray table. Not a living soul knew of my desperation until shortly before my 60th birthday, after decades of swallowing high anxiety and clutching umpteen boarding passes to the afterlife.

 At last secure in the knowledge that my adult daughters were untainted (they soar all over the universe like geese) I announced, having deplaned from a visit to one of them, and fighting the urge to kiss the terminal tile, “I’m retiring.” But the delusional, who think it’s perfectly normal to tempt fate, just won’t let it go. They have to heal me.

 “Statistics prove that air travel is safer than driving,” silly people who think I’ve never heard this platitude still use as rationale to convince me. They fail to realize the key ingredient in any phobia: Abject fear has nothing to do with logic, reality, or proof of either. Fear is not logical, nor is it statistical. It is what it is. And there is a good reason for it. No matter which self-help course I enroll in or what any Doctor of Psychology intervenes to inform so that my intellect understands, every time I tilt my head skyward to see a major airline cruising among the clouds I observe the vulnerability of all those teensy, wee passengers, way the heck up there, blithely walking down the center aisle to use the restroom, a thin sheet of metal between them and oblivion. Not to mention, there’s all that heavy luggage in there, along with tray tables, carry-ons, and way too many passengers with bulging handle bags.

 “But now you can never go to far away places!” people whine, as if I were stopping them from doing so. How far must one go to be happy?

 And if one needs variety enough to trade a Blu-ray DVD showing her everything she’d ever care to see for sudden, firey and violent, twisted-metal death, I ask: Is there any place left that is really all that unique? MacDonald’s or Starbucks is on every corner, no matter where you go. This argument rarely works, by the way. I just get even more looks that say "whoa."

 Meanwhile, I am frustrated. As far as I know, celebrity idols are never mocked for what in my case is ridiculed. It’s perfectly acceptable for a performer or sportscaster—even a space ship captain— to roll across the country on rubber or rail—it becomes part and parcel of their scintillating story. The very same people who would have me committed to a lifetime of therapy think how dedicated was Mr. Madden for making his way across this great nation, like some pioneer in a covered wagon, so he could get to the next football game!  But… how crazy is Kathleen that she that refuses to fly!  He was heralded, while I?  Seems I’m nothing but an airhead.

When Gus Is Gone

As long as I could hear Gus, our King Shepherd, breathing by the side of the bed (he switched sides throughout the night to ensure both my husband Brad and I were adequately protected), hell fire could unleash, and Armageddon charge the driveway. A vigilante army would abandon weapons and turn tail to see this combination breed of German Shepherd, Malamute, and Great Pyrenees. He had the bones of a dinosaur, the brawn of an armed battalion, and a stronger desire to guard than to eat. Rin Tin Tin on steroids. To me? My gentle giant.

 When Brad phoned me from the vet, his voice was choked with emotion to say Gus’ lungs had filled with blood, there were two masses, one in his abdomen, the other in his lungs, and the doctor had informed him, “There is nothing we can do.” We were inconsolable. Shocked. Other than losing his breakfast that morning and acting reluctant to chase his ball, he had offered us no indication that his body had gone awry.

 “They are silent sufferers,” a former vet once told me. Sure enough, there were no whimpers, no whining, and not for a moment had he left his sentry post, out on the front porch, ever watchful. But then, we later eulogized, he wouldn’t have. To succumb to suffering would have suggested failure to protect and defend, and for seven years, guarding his home and heart, this family, was Gus’ reason for living. It would not have been courageous to complain, and Gus was valorous.

 His laissez-faire littermate, Cody, had signaled no concern, but then Cody’s life’s sole purpose, love him fiercely though I do, has always been to wish he could be Gus.

 Over the phone, Brad and I sobbed and agreed that we must let our brave boy go. We live thirty miles outside of town and so, at the end of office hours for the veterinarian, there was no time for me to get there. I could not say farewell, offer him a handful of the chocolate chips normally poisonous to canines, console him the way my fly-fishing girlfriend did when she poached a fat rainbow trout from a local stream to offer to her dying cat for a favorite and last supper.

 “I’ll say goodbye for you,” Brad managed to offer, his voice breaking. After I hung up, I called my daughters.

“Can I call you right back, mom?” Kate asked.

 I wailed, I howled. “Nooooo!” “I’ll never see him again.”

Clary sounded small and wounded, letting her tears come. Meanwhile, in a modest, ordinary veterinary clinic, Gus pressed his full 115-pound body weight against his master’s leg while the doctor found a vein and administered the final shot. The faithful companion whose belly I’d scratched since he was a five-week old puppy content to sleep in the palm of my hand went from the imposing presence I’d thought might be prescribed a soothing rice dinner to a lifeless form.  After his head drooped and his body slid to the examining room floor, Brad released him to the inevitable and drove home, where I’d remained, stabbed by grief, my arms around clueless Cody.

 “Gus isn’t coming home, buddy.” Brad struggled to find words for the sibling at the doorway who searched for the hero with whom he’d spent every waking and sleeping moment since conception.

 The confusion in his soulful brown eyes as he placed his muzzle on the empty collar and slack leash Brad held down for him was, well, heart wrenching. Over the next several days he cruised the house sniffing, tracking, as I frantically scrubbed Gus’ scent from food dishes, tossed out the very old beds they’d shared and bought Cody a new one. I dusted dog hair, vacuumed and mopped the floors. I performed the sad ritual of laundering Brad’s bathrobe that hangs on the hook of our bathroom door, to finally and forever remove Gus’ shedding from deep within its fibers. Speedily I typed into Google’s search box “When you have two dogs and one dies.” Fat tears plopped onto the laptop keyboard. I sputtered and gasped, my throat closing whenever I tried to talk about it.

 What pain is this—the loss of a beloved pet? I’d been through it before—four times, in fact. Like children, the animals we harbor need us in ways that grip the heart and never let go. And if Gus depended on me for food and shelter, for affection and an occasional game of catch, I needed him for the unconditional love that is simply not natural, even within the best of humans.

 Gus had no expectation of me other than my presence, even if he had to wait a full day for it at the window anticipating what I would always do—come home.

 Weeks have passed. Cody has stopped looking behind Brad when he walks in the back door, his ears alert, his eyes pleading, “Is Gus with you?” He sleeps on his new bed now, and even barked a gruffer warning the other night when Brad’s tires crunched over the gravel driveway after dark. Perhaps he will step out of his brother’s shadow and into his shoes now that he doesn’t have to compete for Nylabones and rubber balls.

 There is less dog hair by far to get up from floors and rugs, less dog food to heft and haul, more room to get around without two behemoth bodies sprawled across the room. And yet, the quiet is sorrowful, palpable. No need for Cody to growl and scrape across the wood floor to claim a bone. He doesn’t leap and tussle in the race to be the first one there when the front door opens. In the absence of Gus’ solemn presence, we are all of us, a little lost.

 But when affliction overwhelms me, I look to Cody. He's just a dog. He's just a dog, I chant as I find myself watching his every move and mood for signs of depression, not wanting to succumb to such worry. If we humans at least understand the medical machinations that culminate in death, what version of finality must he wrestle with in his soul? In that moment I am needed—and loved—in a brand new way. I release one good, sweet boy to more fully embrace the other.

 Rest in peace, Gus Gus. Your bother is my shepherd.