Still Missing Her

SUMMARY: Wrong kind of anniversary, but it's in my heart.

Backfill: Copied from my Facebook post this morning

April 21, 2005: The most gorgeous blue merle pup in the known universe came home with me.

We had joy, we had fun, we had agility in the sun! And hiking! And All The Things!

The utterly reliable off-leash dog sometimes helped with the mostly reliable off-leash dog. 

April 24, 2015: Ten years and 3 days later, she was suddenly gone. She overflowed with life and that spills over into my life now, every time I think about her.

Good girlie, Boostie, Booster, BOOST.

Tip: Follow the "Boost goodbye" tag for more photos and then more anniversaries...

If this were Tumblr or Archive Of Our Own, which I have started using in the last year, I might tag this "#I'll probably do this every year."  Oh, what the heck, I'll tag it like that anyway.

Memories and Grief and Joy

SUMMARY: Dad. And Mark Lynch.

Yesterday, Dad died 5 years before.  The day sits so clearly in my mind, lurking with the things about it that I would absolutely have done differently, but also with relief about a couple of crucial things that I had been afraid that I wouldn't have been able to do for him that I did. So--a wildly emotional day. Plus, he died. So, yes, laser burned into my mental memory book.

And that's all on that for now. But it brings up this:

My Archaelogy/Anthropology prof at Santa Clara University, Mark Lynch, was killed by a drunk driver after he graded my final but before I picked it up.  Yes, relevant--

holding this space hoping for ok to post painting of Mark lynch

I "dropped out" of college after my junior year, struggling with what I really wanted to major in. Then I got a dog, bought a house, got married--and a few years after I left college, I went back. Santa Clara accepted me, thank goodness. [that might be another story]. As a Senior, which was also Thank Goodness, because SCU has specific breadth requirements for each year (frosh, soph, jr, sr) to earn your degree, so that, as a Senior, I needed only one of each category and could concentrate on my major classes.

I don't recall which breadth category Anthropology fit into, but that's where I headed. The first class I picked sounded interesting but after one day of the prof's dull, dull, droning delivery, I knew that I couldn't handle it for a full quarter. That he had only maybe 10 students in his class said something, too.  

That left me stuck: My other classes were already set, so I had to find something in essentially the same time slot, and I believe that left only one choice, and of course now I had missed the first class session.

I went anyway, to ask whether he'd add me (the class was listed as full so I couldn't join without that).  And his classroom overflowed with more folks than there were places to sit, lining all the walls. Many more than what he was allowed, but he added everyone, even late me. AND he remembered everyone’s names right away. I don’t know how he did it--must’ve been 50 people in that class. An amazing man.

So, I know that he graded my final because grades were posted (yes, an A).  He put all graded papers and tests into a cube outside his door, but I never did get my final--everyone else’s were in the bin--and I’ve often wondered whether he had kept it on his desk or wherever he was working because I knew all the material well and it was essay(s), and so I had a lot of fun writing it while still delivering the goods. I felt that he'd be OK with that and maybe even enjoy it and maybe he had held onto it a bit for that or had thought that he might see me again to say something.

He was so young.

I had mostly not bothered my profs through all the years of college except occasionally for a specific class-related question, but I had gone in to talk to him a couple of times about some fiction I was trying to break through on (Anasazi-related). Because, in class, not only could he be funny, but could elicit deep emotions with his fabulous descriptions of life and death and the effects of European colonization here in the western states. So I was quite comfortable chatting with him about fiction and about Anasazi and related topics and whatever unrelated topics we went into. Not that we were likely to become real friends, but he wasn’t that much older than I was at that point --I don’t recall exactly--or the same age (I was 27ish). But, still. 

I learned about his death while listening to the car radio--and then I was driving on US-101 bawling my eyes out.

I cried over several days, couldn’t stop thinking about it at night when all those thoughts you don’t want come calling. Then, one night, I dreamed that i was sitting on the outside steps of the building where his class was, head down on my knees, crying again. Suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up, and there he was. He said, you’re crying? And I was stunned, just staring at him being there. And then he said, “About me? Oh, there’s no need for that” followed by words that I don’t remember exactly any more but something along the lines that he had had a happy life and he’d be honored if people would remember the fun that he had and the education that he gave and be happy about all of that for him. And I nodded and he smiled his familiar smile and trotted on down the steps and away.

It helped me so much when I woke, even though I know that it was my brain inventing things--I think it was inventing a story for myself that I could grasp to not wallow in grief and to, indeed, remember him cheerfully.

So, yay, brain.

(See end of post for links related to Mark Lynch.)

I haven't had dreams like that about either of my parents.  I try to remember the same things for them, though.  But these anniversaries are hard.

Photos from family Thanksgiving 6 and 7 years before they died --
because they were always a couple

And a final note: Links related to Mark Lynch

• The Alameda -- see "A campus divided"
• Obituary
  
• Wow! This page has a painting of him done by another of his students
• Article with 3 mentions of excavations he did at Mission Santa Clara
  
• "Site Artifact Density and the Effectiveness of Shovel Probes"
  
• Articles he published -- he did work in Africa, too
  
• "Ph.D. in anthropology in 1978. Mark Lynch was an outstanding young scholar who was greatly interested in the method and theory of archaeology especially as ..." ...  I can't get at this text without buying or renting it, but I wish I could.

Closing on the end of an era--?

SUMMARY: They're Just Big Chunks of Plastic, Right?

Previous posts on this topic:

• April 10, 2012: Mat Matters
• May 1, 2006: No More Rain!

As I related in Mat Matters, my dog mats... crating mats... canopy mats...   oh, right, agility mats... came to me through happenstance between 1997 and 2012.  Their two common features were:  purple. And agility.  I'd have preferred teal or blue with the purple, but, OK, purple.

After that post, my first two mats went into the trash, just too beat up.  The other two were good--one (purple and black) brand new then; the purple and white only a couple of years older, but its edge already fraying, which I never did get around to taping up.

Since (sigh, sob, sad, shoulders droop) 2014 they have been sitting on the same shelf in the garage where I kept them for the preceding 13 years. Sitting. Just sitting there. Waiting. Wanting to be out on a field somewhere, or on the dirt of an arena, or really anywhere.  Wanting matching dog crates resting on them, protecting them, dogs comfy inside them. Matching chairs. Matching leashes. Matching gear bags and toys.

Shocks me every time I realize how long it has been since I tried competing in agility.  "Just a temporary setback," I told myself.

Today, needed to tidy some garage shelves.

Had already gone thru boxes of paper/plastic plates, cups, and plasticware.
Notice a theme in colors even here?
I used to have a lot of parties and barbecues...

Dog gear that used to fit on a shelf and a half had gradually flowed from the initial shelf up and down and across. Same gear that used to fit! So, get to it. First thing, I grabbed the mats to pull them down-- and was showered with purple! (shock, startle, jump back) The purple and white literally disintegrating in my hands!

Holy crappola--is this actually a thing that happens?!

The mat. The frayed side/binding at the bottom from way back, but the crumbling purple is new...

The black and purple is fine. So, really, I guess the P&W was of cruddy quality from the beginning.  Spent 20 minutes taking the mat outside for a final photo, putting it into the trash, and then cleaning up piles and miles of scattered crumbling mini-to-micro plastic bits, on the shelves near the mats, on the floor under the mats, in a trail across the garage, in piles on the sidewalk where I spread it for photos, sweeping and vacuuming Purple.

I keep feeling the edge of my agility era creeping closer. I'm not yet ready to admit that I'm done. I might not be done--since I had been taking Zorro to class before my knee surgery followed by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, with many cases in my county, not going to be one of the first to open much up quickly, either.  Don't know where it will all go. But--another mat gone. Another connection.

But, so--just mats. But with nearly 300 weekends of competition--which means likely 1000 days of competitions--plus seminars, and classes, and fun activities--  It's all part and parcel of Being An Agility Person.  So strange.

Goodbye, Charlotte

SUMMARY: She was only a volunteer spider, but still--

After my previous renters moved out in August of 2018, leaving empty kitchen cabinet shelves here and there, I opened my cereal cabinet one day to discover a messy web taking up an entire empty shelf, populated by a small brownish spider.  I don't mind spiders in my house as long as they're not somewhere super inconvenient or if they're likely to fall on or bite me. And all of those are rare, so for the most part, spiders stay.

That's because I clearly see that the spiders are finding critters to eat in my house, and I'll bet bottom dollar that I would not welcome those critters if I ever met them.

So I left her there. Her: Gender actually unknown, but after a couple of weeks, I named her Charlotte, because what else would one name a spider with whom one would have daily conversations?  She didn't stay small all that long.

She had long spindly legs and a huge abdomen. Hmm, said I, she has the shape of a (erk) black widow, yet she looks brown to me, not black.  Still, black widows have messy webs, none of those pretty ones you can take photos of.  I tried to take photos of her to identify her provenance. It was difficult, because every time I opened the cabinet door, she'd race across her web and tuck herself into the corner. (Note that when I say huge abdomen, her whole body was still still plenty smaller than the pegs that hold up the shelves.)

And I couldn't ever clearly see her belly to determine whether she had that red hourglass.  She was *always* upside down on her web, and near the back of the cabinet, and the web was pretty close to the upper shelf. Tried a couple of times.  Best I ever got, with my camera on a tripod, attempted prefocus, was this:

Sure looked like whitish markings, not red, and not a solid black body. So I took to the internet for more info. After perusing many, many spider sites and photos, I tentatively IDed her as a "false black widow."  (Note that there are many species of black widows, and many species commonly called "false black widow.") Posted the photo at spiderID.com, with my best guess about her species, and got this response, which set my fears to rest:

Comment:
Hi, your description is very good. She’s probably a false widow, Steatoda grossa, I’m not certain from the side view. She has been eating well, which is exactly what you want from a spider in the house. The web is always messy looking and it gets dusty. They like enclosed spaces and darkness. Their sight is poor, they mostly use vibrations and basic light/dark sight to find prey and avoid large animals like humans. I’ve tried photographing the Steatoda species spiders that I let live in my house and it is difficult, they run from the flash or any other light source.

So, for 14 months, typically twice a day (open cabinet to get out cereal or whatever; open it again to put it away), I spoke to her.

"Hi, Charlotte."
"Hello, Charlotte."
"You're looking well fed today, Charlotte."
"Seriously, it's been months, don't you trust me yet?"  She never did trust me.

As time grew nearer for me to get a renter again, and knowing I'd need that shelf, I looked online determinedly for info on how to move a spider who has served me well, without tangling her in her own web, and without dropping her somewhere else in the house.  I found no help, and so I agonized (mildly) about it and did nothing, but the problem nagged in a tiny spot in the back of my head reserved for trivial things to be nagged about.

So, the human thing: You know, you identify a specific living thing. You name it. You talk to it every day. You give it a job title and monitor its performance. It becomes part of your life.

I cannot tell you how surprised I was when, yesterday morning upon opening the cabinet and finding her dead, I felt an immediate rush of grief and sorrow.  Which hasn't yet dissipated.

For a spider. Who never said hi, never trusted me. But who did a truly noble job of doing what I hired her to do: Remove insect vermin from my home.

Now I can clear out the web, reclaim the shelf, and marvel at an arachnid who, all unknowing, shared my life for a year and two months.  Goodbye, Charlotte, and thanks.

On Expectations

SUMMARY: Getting a dog who wasn't as successful as a previous dog

Originally posted in a Facebook comment on June 19, 2019

A friend asked (and I shortened this):

I was just wondering if people had a similar experience. I had/have an amazing agility dog who was/is getting older so I got a new puppy. [...] Unfortunately, my dreams that the pup [now 4 years old] and I would supersede the success of my first dog were unrealized and I let my disappointment rob dog and handler of the joy that should have been ours.

Has anyone else had an experience that the subsequent dog never met the greatness of the first dog? How did you handle the emotions?

Here's my first perspective:

As someone who lost an amazing companion (Boost) to cancer when she was barely 10 and *forever* one superQ away from her ADCH--something that we all *try* to do and some are more successful than others: Just have fun with him! Live every day for joy, whether your agility goals are being met yet or not! How you'd hate yourself if your last agility training or trialing experience with the dog was being upset about not doing well on course, whether at yourself or at the dog. I can think of many runs and many days that I wish I could have a do-over for, not to fix the run, but to fix my attitude. Seriously. Lots of people appear to be successful at it, but Sarah George Johnson in particular leaps out at me at this moment--she whoops and hollers and rewards every run as if they'd just won the world championship.

Here's my second perspective:

Remington, my first dog, was good... started out very good, deteriorated rapidly, and didn't get better again until I was able to truly own that preceding perspective for him (I just kept running full out whether he was off course or not and whether or not the error was fixable, and just whooped it up at the end). So, he ended up a pretty good but not great dog. 

My 2nd dog, Jake, was very good to excellent. My third dog, Tika, was super duper awesome. 

So it wasn't first-dog-itis when I got my 4th agility dog and we couldn't be consistently successful for the world. I tried to embrace the first perspective above, but she was SO fast and SO smart, and I really did expect that she would be even better than my 3rd dog. Damn expectations. I could've practiced more on our weaknesses, for sure, but I didn't always understand why things that worked fine in drills and practices fell apart on the course. 

I understood in many cases that it became my own level of stress--we started failing super-Qs that were gimmees for the skill set that we did have (e.g., "all I need to guarantee a super-Q today is for her to get to the #6 aframe--and she ALWAYS sends ahead to aframes and ALWAYS gets the contact" I mean, literally always... and then a refusal at the aframe. I KNEW how stressed I was by then and wasn't good at choking it down.). 

But I wish every day that I had her back in my life (fuck cancer) and wouldn't care about agility, I swear it. The irony for me was that, the more I cared about agility instead of simply loving running with my dog (which is why I started agility originally), the worse we did (both my 1st and 4th dogs). Jake and Tika dealt with it, but I was so seldom unhappy with them... I dunno which came first, success or happiness. 

So, your question, how did I handle these emotions? Answer: Badly. I try to atone for the times she knew I was unhappy (or people watching me on course knew I was on happy) by saying, See my first perspective above, please please please. Find a way to embrace it. I can't promise that it will improve your agility. But you'll be much happier and so will your dog.

The Heart Is Filled with Joy and Pain

SUMMARY: An unexpected painful result from a photo search.

I searched for "tika"/"box" in my photo catalog to find a favorite of her doing the Get In The Box trick; I adore this shot. Always makes me smile--she was so good at this and of course loved the rewards. Standing there while I took the shot was another thing entirely, but she did it. ("Give me treat, stop photo doing thing.")

And it popped up with this immediately next to it. Tika in a box forever. No treats can be given.

It has been over 4 years now; seems like just last month, I can remember it all, and this slammed it all into my mind and gut.

To mitigate the sad with the happy, I re-edited the Amazon box photo to be brighter and sharper and clearer than my original edit nine years back, and to bring all the glorious golden life-light back into her eyes.

Busy on Facebook, not too much here

SUMMARY: Plus, well... photos, life, work, house, downsizing...

In an attempt to motivate myself to do something with the dogs that I have, not that the dogs that I wish were still alive (although Tika would now be 17 and boost 13...so hard to believe that it has been almost 3 years), I signed up for a tricks class--er, sorry, Circus Dog class.

Not that I don't know how to teach my dogs tricks (to wit: Remington), just finding motivation to do anything with them is so hard. Not that they're bad dogs or don't want to learn or aren't quick learners.  I think that I really still want to do agility. But it hurts. So fuggit.

But enough of that.

Instead, I've been working on firming up their Left and Right turns, and their Shake Left and Shake Right, and of course they're both excellent at nose Touch to the back of the hand. Started working on Crawl with Zorro and on walking backwards with Chip and backwards up the stairs with both of them--all of these barely begun and only occasionally worked on. But I have been doing Get In The Box since it's soooooo simple to teach and fun for others to see when they really get it down and useful for random occasions.  They're both pretty regularly getting into the very long box now. And I have one that's about 1/3 that size; would like to have one in between those sizes but don't and am disinclined to cut up one of the boxes that I have because I am in fact gradually filling them with Things To Go Away and taking them Away.

They like it.  Or the treats. Or the attention.

I had a month after I signed up to actually teach them all the tricks that are likely to be in the 5-week course so that they'd be more relaxed with familiar activities since I don't do nuthin' with them anywhere pretty much ever.  But, you know, Christmas, New Year, grieving, movies, work, whatever, rationalizing away my inactivity. We'll get there gradually through the class. Just found out that a good friend also signed up (also a former agility-champion-maker slowed down by physical limitations but who has always taught her dogs tricks and competing in a bunch more dog sports than I do), so that'll be fun, too.  Looking forward to it.

I should post some photos, since I have so many trillions. Maybe later.

The Feeling With No Name

SUMMARY: Grief at the holidays.

You've read or heard about it your whole life--that not everyone is happy during the epic of The Holidays.

Christmas in particular has always been a favorite of mine. And Thanksgiving, getting together with family and consuming mass quantities, so many good times.

Not every year has been equal in joy, of course.

This year, maybe the roughest for me; I can't speak for the rest of my family, but I suspect for them as well. Dad is gone, Mom is gone, cousin Carol Anne is gone, other cousin's spouse left and will no longer be around. When I lost Tika and Boost--when we discovered that Dad had stage 4 cancer--cousin also lost her dog to cancer. And now, the house (parents' last home) where we've had a large and growing celebration every Christmas morning since 1968 is gone. Every item in that house that made it a familiar family Christmas surrounding is gone--some pieces distributed here and there within the family, but... not there. That particular Parental flavor of being Home for Christmas.

Photos of parents' trees through history

So, it's 2017. The family has changed around me. For the first time in all Thanksgivings, I spent a good part of the morning crying for what is gone, even as I did my best to count the very many things that I have that I am thankful for.

I attempted this normal self-care thing Thanksgiving morning: my annual Thanksgiving morning hike with dogs, most years since I've been on my own, and it has been a lovely thing--few people out, so peaceful, such a beautiful time of year.  And this time my dogs got into a fight with each other and I had to enlist a stranger to help me separate them. That was the capper for the day.

I did go to the family gathering although I didn't feel up to it--all sisters and families and our close cousin were there and we were all in the same boat, so I felt that I couldn't not be there, and it was good to see people but I still had to sneak out and go for a short walk on my own.  I ate too much as usual because the food as usual was overabundant and delicious, but maybe that's what helped me get to sleep last night. A hidden blessing after 2 nights of misery.

Wednesday I stared at my boxes and boxes of xmas decor-because I love Christmas and Thanksgiving weekend is usually the beginnings of decorating for the season--I started thinking that the last thing that I want is a huge family xmas like we've had every year of my 61 xmases to date, which I have always enjoyed.  I can't quite grasp it. But what made it even more interesting is that many of my sisters hinted that they feel the same way, so we'll see what happens.

I am grieving, I know. It hurts. My grief is like no one else's, and no one else's is like mine or anyone else's. We can call it grief, but it's as personal as the way you smile, the color of your eyes, the movies you enjoy, the color that's your favorite, all of the million things wrapped together to make you you, or me me.  How can one word cover that?  Can't. I struggle for words to convey my complex roiling mental, emotional, and physical states.  Grieving. Will have to do for now.

One thing that took my mind off it all for a half hour, thereby cheering myself a fraction, on Thanksgiving morning I searched for "turkey" in my photo disk and shared them in this Facebook album with captions for your turkeying pleasure.

Grief and Joy

SUMMARY: Things change over time. But not quickly.

Two things happened Sunday that made me realize that the jagged wounds of losing Tika and Boost are scarring over:

• I took Chip and Zorro up Coyote Peak to my special Photo Spot where the Merle Girls and I had gone so many times, and although of course I thought about Boost and Tika, it was more of a reminiscence, not a tearing-out-my-guts experience. That had been one big reason why I hadn't even tried before: Couldn't bear the thought of going up without the girls and remembering all those good times.   But this time, I was completely present with these dogs, paying attention to them, enjoying them, incorporating their presence on this special peak into my life story.
• I again came across Team Small Dog's cartoon post about scaredy-cat young Border Collies from a while back, and it reminded me so much of Boost all over again, and it made me laugh all over again--and the laughter didn't end in sobs; it was all delight.

So, two and a half years is apparently how long it takes to where  I'm managing to have their memories in my life without immediately breaking down.  You know, it gets to where one thinks that will never happen.  Not to say that I don't miss them so much so often. But it's bearable now, most of the time.

Unlike this:

This evening, I had a little extra time and was in the neighborhood of my parents' former home. Thought I'd do a quick drive-by.  Oh, it hurt. From a mile away, the closer I got, the more it hurt and hurt. Grief is physical.  Both parents gone so recently, and the house where they lived for 49 years, and all those birthdays and Christmases and dinners and celebrations and all the books and the bookcases full of photo memories and all the family memorabilia and heirlooms and the things that my parents loved everywhere in the house.  All the things that made the house My Parents' Home.  It could never be reproduced anywhere again. And neither could Mom or Dad be.  It hurt so much.

So, 9 months since Mom died; 6 months since we sold the house; those are nowhere near long enough to distance the grief.

It'll be a long time before I try that again.

Father's Day...

SUMMARY: notes from facebook June 6, '16

Backfill: Didn't post this until August 2, 2016

A friend posted on Facebook today:

Just realized for the first time in my life, I don't have to worry about Father's Day plans.
That was a blow.

And I replied--

I've been going through exactly the same thing this year. And we are not alone [based on other comments I've seen on FB lately]. 

I've been seeing or hearing things that might have turned into nice father's day gifts (such as activities), and then -- oh, right. 

I empathize. It's interesting how Father's Day was no big deal--I did try to do something most years, even just a card--but now, this year, it looms large.

Several additional people noted on this post, "Same here," or the equivalent.

And then, of course, this reminder from another person:

25 years for me this year...and it still will be sad

Fathers are both not forever and forever.

I look a lot like my dad.

Last night a year ago last night a year ago today

SUMMARY: Oh my little Booster. And everyone else.

This is not a happy post.

Today is Monday.

Saturday night I dreamed. I hurried from place to place in the yard and then out into the neighborhood and then back to the yard to places that I suddenly remembered existed there although they hadn't necessarily existed before, searching desperately, knowing she was gone but wanting to find her.

A year ago yesterday, I put together all the pieces that I had stupidly not realized the significance of and insisted that we had to see the vet TODAY. We saw the vet. Everything was completely normal as far as the vet could tell. Took blood and urine samples, and then we went home for the weekend.

In two weeks, she'll be dead.

Saturday night, I dreamed. I asked the neighbors if they had seen her. I said that she'd been looking for a place to hide away from everyone and it could be anywhere, any dark, quiet, out-of-the-way spot. I knew that she was gone, but I wanted to know where she was, even though it was too late.

A year ago in 48 hours from now, I learned that what the blood test found was that every indicator of a body in full destruction existed therein. All that we had left was to learn what it was that was killing her.

Yesterday, after dreaming, I woke up and cried and cried and cried.

A year and one month ago: Tika died.

A year and two weeks ago: Dad's cancer, thought to be in remission, the doc comes into the room and explains that it's determined to be stage 4 metastasized colon cancer. In several places in his body, liver, lungs, kidney...

Today I'm crying. Luke is trying to hug me.

Saturday night, I dreamed: I knew where Boost had hidden the last time she died, but she wasn't there, although I kept looking there over and over.

In two weeks, I tried to stay up with her all night, would doze off slightly and she'd be gone and I'd hurry outside to find her, and she'd be slowly, droopily, examining some dark hidden spot or other. I'd say her name, and her ears and head would come up, and she'd come back inside and lie down with me in the living room again.

In four days, the vet comes into the room and says, it's bad. It's the worst it could be. It's stage 4 metastasized cancer. In several places in her body. liver, lungs, kidney, lymph nodes...

A year and two weeks ago, Dad opted to try some mild chemotherapy, on the advice of his oncologist and doctor, since he had other issues that anything more intense his body likely couldn't handle.

A year and two weeks ago, Tika's ashes in their decorated wooden box are ready, and I bring her home again.

Saturday night, I dreamed: I kept looking at that little concrete pad under that little shelf next to the stairs, somewhere where neither the dogs nor I ever went, a cool spot out of the sun, away from the traffic and the activity of life.

I opted not to try to treat Boost. It was so advanced and her blood count so low that simply doing a biopsy could kill her. And I'd been through Remington's cancer. And yet, when a tiny glimmer of hope arises, in six days, I take her to the specialists on the chance that they might have some other news. But they don't.

In about 2 months, my dad is so miserable with the chemo side effects, and there's so little indication that it's doing anything, that he elects to stop treatment. He is adamant that he won't die at home. He doesn't want to be a burden to his family and he doesn't want them to see him die. We'd be fine with both, but he isn't. There are no options, however.

In two weeks, when I doze off near morning, she goes to that concrete pad that I'm now seeing empty in my dream, away from the traffic and noise and the responsibilities to people who love her, and slips away, alone and on her own terms.

Four months from yesterday, after a 911 emergency call involving the dying body giving up its blood, the ambulance took Dad to the hospital just for overnight, because the in-patient hospice unit had a bed for him and would be able to check him in there in the morning. The emergency room doc agreed to admit Dad with just the care of keeping him comfortable and out of pain until the morning, not to treat beyond that, per his own signed wishes. We tell Dad, although pretty sure that he can't hear us or understand us or even knows that we're there, that we'll be back in the morning.

In the living room, in two weeks I fall asleep from exhaustion even though I'm trying trying trying to stay up because I know that she's dying, I know it, and maybe today. I don't know why I want to be with her at the end, but I do, I don't want her to be alone ever. And the vet is coming in the morning to help her out of her pain. And she has a different idea.

At home, in fourth months I fall asleep easily for the first time in weeks, knowing that he won't die at home and that that was his wish, since I'd been afraid he'd die at home and I had known that it was coming, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but we were out of time. At one in the morning, while we slept at home, the call comes. In his quiet hospital bed, away from the traffic and noise and the responsibilities to people who love him, he slips away, alone and on his own terms.

Tika, Boost, Dad. It has been a hard year for me and this past week began pummelling me in all the raw places that have barely begun thinking about a start on healing.

In two weeks the vet will come and take Boost away for cremation. In four months the mortuary will come and take Dad away for cremation. Tika's ashes are already on my shelf with Jake and Remington.

In a year, I will remember everything, all the details, all the sounds and expressions and suffering and release, and it will be today, and I will be crying because it's only yesterday.

Saturday I dreamed, and even awake, it's so hard.

Grief

SUMMARY: It's crying time again.

Maybe this is why I don't come here to Taj MuttHall very often.  Crying. How could it be 11 months since Tika left? Nine and a half for Boost?  They were just here, just here. I miss these Merle Girls so very much.

Simple Thoughts About Hard Things

SUMMARY: Simply written.

This is the year when everything changed.

Maybe not everything.

But it feels as if it were everything important.

My old dog who knew how to do the dog jumping and climbing game very well is gone. Because she was old and sick.

My younger dog who also knew how to do it very well suddenly became very, very sick with bad things growing inside her that killed her very, very quickly.

And both of these girls could walk and run without a six-foot holding thing between me and them and still be good girls.  And would come when called (mostly anyway). And knew how things worked in the world and loved to be out in the world and checking everything out. Now I have dogs who know or do none of these. And I miss my girls so much.

My father, whom I have known for more than half a hundred years--that is, my entire life--had bad things growing inside him, also, which also killed him quickly and also made him angry because, being human and not dog, he knew what was happening and didn't like it much.  And he knew so very very much that I can't even begin to say what.

The set of bones running down my back have decided to go in different directions than they should go and do other things that make the sensing-feeling things in my legs and back hurt so much that some days I can barely walk. Or sit. Or stand.  Lying down is usually pretty good and I like that part. But it's hard to do that and do any of the other things that I want to do--hard to do almost anything, in fact, when lying down.

So my dream of ending working for money and traveling the world and walking through and up and down many forests and hills and mountains and very dry places seems to be fading. And of taking photos of many creatures and places and things from many points of view such as lying down or on my knees or back seems to be fading. And of playing that dog jumping and climbing game until I turn eight times ten years old is fading. And also of staying in this house in this area for several more years until I have carefully thought things through seems like it cannot happen. Which means that I must be faster at getting rid of many of the many things in this house, and that is something that I find hard to do.

So. I am getting up every morning and doing the things that I must do and finding ways to still enjoy life and trying to slowly come to know the truth of my life and what I need to be doing within me, not just in my head.

These are all hard ideas to grab. And yet, in many ways, it is quite simple.  To help me think simply about it all, I have written this story-thing using this thing that helps people to write using only words from a simple word set*. It is hard to be simple.  Maybe that is why I feel so tired so often.  Trying hard to be keep things simple. Being simple is hard. And so many simple things are hard.

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*I thank xkcd for creating this Simple Writer thing.   Here is a good one of his funny drawings that I think uses the simple words.

("The thrower started hitting the bats too much,  so the king of the game told him to leave and brought out another thrower from thrower jail.")

I have so many things to say to myself that I want to track--

SUMMARY: --and yet they stay in my head.

About my current dogs.

About my past dogs.

About my friends' dogs. Who are getting older as I'm not doing agility and not seeing them and their new dogs whom I don't recognize and whose names I don't know and I don't know what they're like. And

About agility and missing it and not missing it.

About pain and pain and pain, inside and out.  About still finding pleasure in life.

About back surgery being very likely in my very near future. And being very afraid.

About my dad who is gone. And still have no words.

About good friends and good times--I don't have many close friends, and I'm not excellent at staying in touch, but somehow we manage.

About Trail Watch Academy coming up and trying to walk 10,000 steps a day and seldom being able to do so.

About Disneyland! In 4 weeks and very excited because I love going there yet with trepidation because trips in January and May were excruciating.  But still wanting to go.

About truly feeling like I'm working towards being Old, not merely Older Than Before.

About beautiful weather and terrible drought and even with that, the survival of civilization with no zombies at all. So far.

About photography and loving it.

This was supposed to be my daily diary of my life with my dogs. Now it is just rather a personal version of Pinterest.

OK, I have another post to do, so on to that.

The pain is so big

SUMMARY: Time is passing but I don't know how

My pain and grief belie the calendar. Only yesterday my Merle Girls left me, the pain and grief are so big that they tell me this. Yet it has been 6 and 7 months, I realized suddenly just now.

I don't even know how to begin talking about my Dad's absence.

I am enjoying my life for the most part (except for the self-destructing spine pain issues), yet the knife still cuts deep and the tears explode, sobbing so much beyond mere weeping.

Now I'm joining friends for this evening for Cumberbatch's Hamlet. Drying my tears. Collecting my missing breath. Continuing.

Of Dragons and Broomsticks and Grieving, Oh My

SUMMARY: Bittersweet dog hair.

Everything in my home and my life is anchored with nano-thin strands to my brain or my heart, or both. The threads hang loosely most of the time, and I never know when one will be yanked and the pain hits and the tears come.

Sometimes in the silliest and most bittersweet ways.

I hardly ever take Chip anywhere. We used to go everywhere. This morning when he went outside with me while I got the newspaper (tears still, every morning, because Boost isn't getting it), he saw a neighbor open their car door and raced over to try to get in. Darn it, we never go anywhere. I no longer have a dog with a reliable recall. Darn it darn it darn it.

After that, I swept the kitchen and the stairs, for the first time since just after Boost died. So--6 weeks. Used to be that granules of dirt and crud accrued rapidly under the two PVC beds in the kitchen, forming a textured carpet of filth on the floor in the exact rectangular shape of the bed. Sometimes every couple of days I'd be so horrified by the grunge that I'd grab the hand vac just to clean under the beds.

Dog hair used to rain down; it formed puddles of fur in the corners of every step on the two staircases, along underneath the fronts of all the cabinets, all across the floor and the corners of the rooms and under the chairs... Sweeping once a week wasn't really enough, but I'd be lucky to get it done half as often, and then sweeping created mountains of fur in multiple locations for scooping and hand-vac-ing, all filling half a wastebasket at least.

Tika drooled at the drop of a food, her whole life. So the areas on the floor of the kitchen where she'd sit and wait while I put the food bowls down, or where she'd hang out by the counter as someone prepared any kind of food. became spotted and smeared and filthy and gross and had to be mopped regularly.

The kitchen floor as a whole easily displayed dirty swaths that demonstrated easily the paths that the dogs took in and out and around.

Today, after 6 weeks:
A bare handful of hair after sweeping everything.
Hardly a speck of dust beneath the PVC beds.
A few random dirty spots here and there on the kitchen floor.

You'd think I'd be happy about the lack of mess, but no: I bawled. Chip moved in and let me lean my head on his shoulder.

And this, in my head:

Boost and Tika doggies lived by the sea
And frolicked in the big back yard in a land called Honalee.
Together they would travel in a van with billowed sail.
Tika kept a lookout next to Booster's white-tipped tail.
One gray night it happened: Boost and Tika came no more.
And MUTT MVR the minivan it closed its rear hatch door.

She's Done With It

SUMMARY: Now doesn't want to eat anything.

During the afternoon, she happily ate most of two Girl Scout peanut butter sandwich cookies (a few pieces at a time, spread out) and probably a large handful of Zuke's minis (over 2 or 3 opportunities).

But she's now refusing the ground beef "soup" or even the broth or the meat separately. And the baby food chicken. Ate one Zuke's just a little while. Took four more into her mouth, then gently laid them back onto the floor.  Didn't want any of the fish or rice that I cooked for myself. Doesn't want peanut butter sandwich cookies now.

I wanted to give her fun things to eat. Hope that they're not actually the cause of her feeling worse--but I don't know how this works.

I just can see that she is, now, pretty much done.  I hope that someone is available to help us on tomorrow morning (Monday).

It's Almost Over

SUMMARY: My good old girl.

Friday evening.

Message from the vet when I got home in the evening, giving initial blood-test results. Summary: "She's only somewhat anemic but in 90% renal failure." Details for my records:

• Anemic: 36-60 is normal and she's 30.
• Kidney measurement 1 (didn't catch the name): Normal is 6-31; in September, she was 78; now is 125
• Creatinine: 1.6 is high normal and she's at 3.1
• Phosphorus 6 is high normal and she's at 9

Vet should have rest of tests back Monday and we'll talk then.

Tika ate a whole jar of babyfood turkey, quite a few Charlie Bears, and--something I haven't tried in a while--maybe a quarter of a stick of string cheese (don't want to give her too much dairy at one time). That's a good "meal", one of the best in the last 3 days. Even if I do have to break it up into small servings every 20-30 minutes or so. She's still walking around on her own when she *has* to.

But--Tonight was the first time in her life, other than when she was out of hearing range, that she didn't greet me at the garage door when I came home. Just lying there on the carpet and panting. I have tears.

She has kept on going way beyond any predictions ("2-3 months") when the heart failure was discovered that ended her agility career (Nov 2012). Good old sweet noisy talented annoying clever now-skin-and-bones Merle Girl.

Saturday morning.

She wanted to be out on the lawn when I went to bed. This is normal, except that before now, that would be the back porch. Lawn usually during the early evening.

I didn't leave the sliding door open although I wasn't sure whether she'd be able to get through the doggie door on her own.  I woke up at half past midnight and went down to check on her. She had moved inside onto the carpet and was sleeping soundly, so I guess the dog door was fine, so I left her alone and went back to bed.

This morning, was in a different spot than when I went back to bed, so she is moving around on her own, just oh so rarely. I did insist once that she stand up (I'm leaving her padded harness on all the time now so that I can haul her or help her to her feet as needed) to be sure that she still could stand, but she went right back to where she'd been.

Her gums were pink again this morning, so ... intermittent anemia? Could be: Internal bleeding. Sporadic failures of the heart to pump enough blood. Random other things.

I cooked up a batch of ground beef, added a bunch of water, and gave that to her--I think that she's not drinking much now, so more liquid the better (except, oh, yeah, yesterday she was still insisting on drinking out of that rancid pond out there, walking right past the water dish)--and WOW she was absolutely delighted to make the acquaintance of Tika's Special Beef Soup.

Saturday evening

I left the house for a few hours after that, and then the rest of the afternoon and evening, same things--she laps/eats eagerly for a very short time and then is done again. She's not getting tons of food or liquid this way.  I added minced cooked green beans later to her Special Beef Soup, and she didn't mind that.

Still, not eating very much at any one time. Mere mouthfuls, really. Still happy to take a few mouthfuls more 20 to 30 minutes later. Until yesterday, Charlie Bears were awesome, but now they've joined the list of things that she won't eat. Can still walk out through the dog door to the back yard, but now can't remain standing after squatting to pee. After a rest, can get herself standing and moving again if she thinks there's a good reason to, which mostly she doesn't seem to. But still likes to have the ol' ear/face rub.

When I'd check on her, she'd usually be where I last left her--but then she'd suddenly be lying somewhere else. So, very little mobility. She's become like the Racetrack Playa stones in Death Valley: she has moved, but no one sees her move.

I found her at the base of the stairs inside the house twice; she maybe wanted to be closer to me in the living room, but not sure whether she tried to go up and slipped, or just lay there deliberately (or couldn't turn around and so lay down as the only other option).  The problem with having spread no-slip carpets out for her is that now I can't hear when she's struggling.

I don't think this is a good life for this dog.

I will talk to my vet Monday morning.

I've got the numbers for a couple of mobile vets who also do in-home euthanasia and I'll call them, also, and talk to them.

How odd--my face is all wet.