Molly Update

It’s been 5 days since we received Molly’s terrible diagnosis from the Vet. This is unchartered territory for us. We were told to keep her comfortable and that we would know when it was “time”, and that her days were numbered in weeks not months. It is a strange thing to live with the immediate expectation of death, but that’s the only way I know to describe it. Every morning I walk down the steps not knowing what I might find. Will she be swollen up, wracked with pain and in misery? When instead she greets me with a goofy smile, tail wagging away, I breathe a sigh of relief… such a strange way to exist.

Pam has devised a sort of “bucket list” for Molly. Leave it to my wife to turn to organization and planning to deal with this. She has come up with a list of Molly’s favorite things to do and is busily checking them off. Yesterday she went to Deep Run Park for a walk. This was the park that was Molly’s great hangout back when she was a rambunctious and out of control puppy. She would run and sniff and flirt with everyone she saw. There would be no running yesterday, but she had a grand time anyway.

So far Molly still has her appetite and her bathroom skills are still fully functioning. She still begs for food at the dinner table, still lays at Pam’s feet in the kitchen when she’s preparing meals hoping for a mistake, and still shadows our every move. In other words, Molly is still Molly. Half the time we wonder whether it’s all just a mistake, a misunderstanding, and Molly has cashed in a misdiagnosis by turning it into an opportunity for even greater attention than she normally gets. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. I can imagine her thinking, “Man-o-man, my folks sure are getting soft in their old age! First, Mom has bought me two chew toys in the last three days, and now I’m getting steak right from the grill?? Wow!”

We obsess over every limp, even the smallest swelling in her legs. But so far, so good.  

Chapter 20 of my unnamed novel...

This is the latest chapter of the book I've been writing. Just thought I would post it here to get your comments and feedback. The story is not about dogs, but one is introduced into the story here. I guess since Molly has been so much on my mind, it would inevitably come out in the writing. Hope you like it!

 

 

 

                                                            20.

 

 

It was a beautiful night, one of those mid April Spring evenings before the pollen had come, before the winds had cast a dewy yellow film over the earth. Percy had found some khaki shorts knotted up in his chest of drawers along with a UVA tee shirt. He dug out the flip flops from the back of his closet, and within minutes had a steak cooking on the grill on the back deck.  He poured himself a beer and listened to the sizzle of the meat on the low gas flame. There was a bird, loud and rhythmic singing from the top of one of the huge pines in the back yard.

 

He was alone, and trying to come to grips with being alone. Although he no longer longed for her, he still missed Beth, missed the friend that she had become, missed having someone to care for. He had taken the time to reconnect with some friends from the church that he had been a member of for most of his life. It was more accurate to say that it was his parent’s church, but it was also his, if in a less consuming way. He had stopped going when he was married to accommodate Beth, and honestly hadn’t missed it much, although it had cost him some friendships, friendships that he had started to rebuild by going every other Sunday or so, and playing on the softball team. It was strangely uncomfortable at first, but after a while it actually felt nice to be a part of something again, the softball team more so than the church. Pastor Riggs looked 100 years old. He had stood in that same pulpit practically every Sunday for 40 years, and as Percy sat and listened to his first sermon in over a decade it occurred to him how difficult it must be to come up with something interesting to say after 1800 sermons. For Pastor Riggs it had turned out to be impossible. It was as if Percy had never left, like Riggs just started up where he had left off when Percy had walked away, with some boring story about the children of Israel being disobedient about some such thing and God sending down thunderous judgment upon them. But Riggs was a good man, a kind and loving man, and in the end, that’s what the members of Fairview Baptist wanted. They wanted a man who would care for them, who would marry them, bury them, and visit them when they were sick, a man without spiritual ambitions. When Percy lay in the hospital after trying to kill himself, Riggs had been there… for his parents. The first words that he had spoken to Percy after he had regained consciousness had been to say how he had missed seeing him in church on Sundays. It was what the world was about for Albert Riggs; it was about who was there and who wasn’t there, and it was his job to keep score.

 

The steak was delicious, tasted like the outdoors. After dinner it began to get dark, and Percy sat on the sliding swing looking out over the expansive yard. The clothesline was still strung tightly between two rusted metal T-shaped poles that Gilbert had pounded into the ground with a ten pound hammer a hundred years ago. There were the mammoth pine trees, at least four feet in diameter that rimmed the property line in the back, the wild, out of control forsythia bushes blazing in bright yellow that separated Gilbert’s yard from the neighbors. Soon the crickets would start to sing, and if Percy closed his eyes it would be like he was seventeen again.

 

He saw him limp out from the forsythias, favoring his left front paw. He didn’t recognize the dog from the neighborhood. He looked thin and rough the way dogs do when they spend all of their time outdoors roaming around. The dog held his head high, the smell of meat in the air, then saw Percy on the deck. He cocked his head to one side as if to get a better look then began trotting painfully towards the deck. Percy smiled and walked down the steps to get a closer look himself. He looked like some sort of mix, probably some lab in him. His coat was blond, short haired and filthy. No leash, something wrong with one of its ears, like he might have lost part of it in a fight. But despite his pitiful condition, the dog was not afraid or shy, and limped straight up to Percy with bright eyes and what looked like a delirious smile, and laid down right at his feet.

 

“Well, hello.” Percy knelt down and looked more closely to make sure the dog didn’t have mange. “What’s your name boy?” The dog sat up and extended his wounded left paw to Percy. “Paw giving you trouble boy? Got something stuck in there? Let’s take a look.” A dime sized burr had lodged itself into his paw pad. When he tried to remove it, he pricked his own thumb and blood bubbled up quickly. “Damn! No wonder you’re limping boy.” Percy ran into the house, found some pliers and a couple of dish rags that he soaked under some warm water from the faucet. When he returned to the deck, the dog had jumped up somehow onto the sliding swing and had his left paw extended out, waiting patiently. One firm tug with the pliers removed the burr, and the dog had let out a small yelp, but then had jumped down from the swing and walked over towards the grill, nose high and sniffing.

 

“You look like you could use a meal, boy, but let’s clean you up first.”

 

Percy spent the rest of the night reclaiming the dog from neglect. There were scratches all over his legs, his coat infested with ticks. Percy went to the tool shed and found a metal wash tub, filled it with warm water from the kitchen and gave the dog a bath with his Old Spice body wash. The dog didn’t fight the attention, and seemed to be overjoyed with the suds. At some point during the bath Percy found himself calling the dog “Sam”. It seemed right, seemed to fit the irrepressible spirit of this abused animal. After spraying him off and toweling him down, Percy noticed how thin he was, his ribs tracing curved arches along his sides. “You hungry, Sam?”

 

Sam raced up on the deck and stood looking through the screen door, tail wagging, at Percy scrounging through the refrigerator looking for something that would serve as dog food. Percy looked back over his shoulder at the dog’s grateful face, then reached for the remaining New York Strip. He placed it on the cutting board and sliced it carefully into small squares, then placed them on a plate and sprinkled some grated cheddar cheese on top. He ran some cold water into a large cereal bowl, and returned to the deck.

 

“Sam, I’m not sure if this is the best thing to be feeding a starving dog, but it’s either this or frozen pizza.”

 

Percy placed the food and water on the ground in front of Sam, then sat down on the swing expecting a vociferous display of bad eating manners, but Sam looked down at the food, backed up a step and looked back at Percy as if in disbelief. The dog had just been presented with a meal fit for a King, and he had hesitated, taken the time to stare at Percy with eyes wet with what looked like gratitude. “Go ahead and eat Sam. It’s for you boy.”

 

Sam then lunged at the plate and devoured every morsel, licked all the bloody juice clean, and drank the bowl dry. He then gave his new clean body a mighty shake and walked over to the swing and laid down, resting his head on Percy’s feet. Percy reached down and scratched the top of his head. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you Sam?”

 

Percy would have to ask around the neighborhood tomorrow, see if anyone knew the dog’s owner. But for tonight, he would sit on the deck and let this dog warm his toes against the cool breeze. They sat together for the better part of an hour, until it began to get chilly. Percy went inside and found an old blanket in the top of the linen closet, folded it into a three foot square then placed it beside the screen door under the green and white striped awning. “You can sleep here tonight Sam. That way if it rains, you’ll stay dry. Tomorrow, maybe we’ll see about getting you a collar and some real dog food, ok buddy?” Percy had already decided that Sam was his now. If he had a previous owner, he couldn’t be much of one to allow the dog to reach such a state. All night Percy lay in bed thinking of things to do for Sam. He would build him a dog house, or maybe even let him sleep inside. He would have to find a Vet, and get him checked out, of course. It had been years since Percy had had a dog, since high school. He would have to read up on the best dog foods, buy him some toys to play with. Maybe he would have to build a fence to keep him from running off; roaming around free might prove a hard habit to break. He had finally fallen asleep some time after midnight.

 

The next morning, his eyes opened and for a few minutes he lay awake feeling a strange expectation, an excited brightness, a surprising gratefulness for the day. It was Saturday, or maybe Sunday, whatever, he was going to spend it taking care of his dog, getting to know this amazing gift that had limped into his back yard, with the power to infuse his life with an almost electric sense of purpose. Percy bounded out of bed, skipped past the coffee maker to the screen door of the deck and threw it open. Sam was gone.

Meet The New Terrorists.

As of 6:35 am on Friday April the 19^th, we know that the Boston Marathon bombings are the work of two Chechen brothers. The eldest was killed by Boston police in the wee hours this morning, with the youngest, one Dzhokhar Tsarnaez, 19 still at large. We know little if anything about their motivation. We know nothing about whether this was meant as some political statement, or just the work of two homesick kids longing to recreate life back in their beloved Chechnya. You remember Chechnya, right? That troubled district of the old Soviet Union which fought and won a bloody war with Moscow in the early 90’s for independence, then fought and lost another war ten years later. The Chechens were known for their ruthless tactics and seemingly self-destructive tendencies, willing to take ten blows in order to deliver one. Oh, and the population of Chechnya is 90% Sunni Muslim, so there’s that.

So, other than the fact that his name would make one heck of play in Words With Friends, we know nothing about this boy. But knowing nothing is very different than saying nothing. The one thing that the Boston tragedy has taught me is that modern journalism means never having to say you’re sorry. A news network can now make any claim they wish, and no matter how spectacularly wrong they turn out to be, nobody loses their job. Fog of war and all I suppose. In this they are assisted mightily by the internet, which in the first ten minutes after the first explosion had already posited a thousand theories about the motivation of the bombers since it was obviously the work of redneck Tea Party militia groups pissed off about tax day. Or maybe it was illegal Mexican immigrants who had flooded over our porous southern border, taking a break from becoming registered Democrats, or perhaps just your garden variety Islamic terrorist trying to bring back the glory days of the 5^th century. No matter what the truth turned out to be, the narrative had already been written and published.

But, I never saw the prediction that it would end up being a couple of Chechen brothers, which just goes to show you that life is full of surprises. There will always be an aggrieved group somewhere flying under the radar waiting for their big chance to inflict carnage on free people. So, now we can expect a series of editorials from the New York Times…”The Chechens. Why Do They Hate Us?”  Our policemen will be warned not to engage in Chechen profiling. Incidents of violence against Chechen-Americans will become epidemic. Some Congressman will call for a boycott of all imported Chechen products only to discover that Chechnya exports nothing…but Chechens. Noam Chomsky will publish a pamphlet entitled, “America’s Shameful History of Chechnya-Hatred”.

Meet the new threat. Same as the old threat.

Bad News About Molly

Pam and I got the bad news yesterday that Molly has a rather advanced malignant carcinoma. We were told to keep her comfortable as long as we can, but that at some point very soon, we will have to make the decision to put her down.

I have thought of little else since. For the most part, Molly has been able to keep her condition from us, showing few outward signs of distress. In hindsight it does explain some things. We just thought that her refusal to climb stairs, and her occasional bathroom accidents were just because she was getting old. Now we know just how sick she has been. Despite the cancer, she still eats well, still wags her tail with delight at the slightest morsel of attention she gets from us, still looks at us with those wet brown eyes full of love and loyalty. It’s hard to believe that she is dying.

So, we will watch her carefully, and cherish each day she has left. Thirteen years ago on Christmas Eve, I laid on the floor at Gayton Animal Hospital and held my first Golden Retriever, Murphy, as the vet put him to sleep. He had been with us 14 years. It was one of the saddest moments of my life. Molly will be different. I don’t know that I have ever loved an animal more than I love Molly. Although in 11 years she has never once uttered a word to me, we have communicated in a thousand other ways. She has a powerful intuition about all of us, she senses when we are upset, knows when something isn’t right and instinctively comes to our rescue with a nudge of her cold wet nose, or with a ball in her mouth. It’s the sort of presence that can’t be replaced.

God knows how hard our lives can be on this earth, he knows that there will be periods of depression and hopelessness for all of us. So, he allows us the privilege of a dog. When we experience their unconditional love and devotion we are reminded that things will get better. When I look at Molly I sincerely hope to become half as good a man as she thinks I am.

Boston

Like everyone else, I was glued to the television yesterday around 5 in the afternoon. I had gotten home from work when I noticed the voice of Brian Williams of NBC news from the corner of my family room. The screen was filled with chaotic, screaming people running around through thick plumes of white smoke. It took five minutes or so to piece together what had happened, that someone had set off two bombs within yards of the finish line of the Boston marathon, right across the street from the Westin Hotel at Copley Place where I had stayed the last time I was in that city, two years ago. There was an aerial shot of the sidewalk covered in blood; there was footage of bleeding victims being whisked about in wheel chairs. Literally before the blood on the sidewalk had even dried there was a former Congressman from Boston telling us that this tragedy was evidence of why we need a robust and fully funded government saying, “No tax cut could ever help us recover from this.” Nicholas Kristof, a columnist from the New York Times took the opportunity to blame Republicans for not approving President Obama’s nominee for Director of the ATF. More than one MSNBC talking head made the observation that this was April 15, tax day, and also Patriot’s Day, very important days for “militia groups” around the country. You know, just sayin’.

We live in a time where everything is politicized. I have no doubt that if those responsible prove to be from Iran, Republicans will use that fact to push us to embark on yet another Middle Eastern misadventure. If the bombers end up being from some environmentalist, or Occupy Wall Street affiliated group, conservatives will rail against the administration for being “soft on liberal hate groups”. If, on the other hand, the guilty parties end up being from some Tea Party, or anti-government militia group or even worse, a white-supremacist group, the left in this country, along with 90% of the media will eagerly pile on, blaming Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc…

I have no idea who was responsible for placing two bombs in two trash cans loaded with ball bearings designed to kill and maim as many innocent people as possible. In fact, I don’t even need to know WHO did it, to know that it was evil and reprehensible.  No political cause can justify it; there exist no extenuating circumstances that can condone it. It is simply the act of a deranged and despicable mind. To attempt as some have to score political points, or to use this nightmare to advance a political agenda, is as predictable as it is infuriating. But for the good of the country, my hope is that the murderer is one of us. My biggest fear is that if it turns out to be some Al Qieda nutjob, we will get drawn in to another whack-a-mole war somewhere in the vast wasteland that is the Middle East. Enough already.

What...ME Worry??

One of the many benefits of keeping a journal is that it serves as a history book. Although, history books written by those who lived through it aren’t the most reliable accounts, since they are inherently biased, they are useful in other ways. For one, it allows you to realize how cyclical are the vicissitudes of life, and how wise and true are the words from Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

I was wondering recently how this blog would read ten years from now. Would I laugh to read how upset and worried I was about some news item from 2013 that ended up being nothing at all to worry about? Would I shake my head in astonishment at how much I fretted about inconsequential things? Would I wonder why I never mentioned other things that ended up being much more critical? As an experiment, I dug through my old journals and found entries from 2003, and 1993. Here’s what I found.

In 1993 I had two children less than seven years old, I worked a lot harder, never worried about politics, and seemed much more spiritually minded. My journal entries were mostly about the difficulties of being a parent, the wild and capricious nature of my business, and the daily struggles of being a Christian. I was much more connected to the church then through a Sunday school class and various Bible Study fellowships. The entries were less sarcastic, with less jaded opinion and more charity to my fellow man.

By 2003, my children were teenagers, and my every spare moment seemed to be consumed by the latest happenings in the youth group at Grove. My comments about work and the world seemed more anxious. The daily gyrations of the stock market were a subject of frustrated fascination, and I seemed much less interested in “the church”, and much more interested in “the kids”.

One thing that was consistent in both of these random years was that there were always things to worry about, and probably 90% of the things I feared the most ended up never happening, or if they did, the consequences proved to be much less catastrophic than I had feared. The biggest difference between today and my writings from ten and twenty years ago seems to be the fact that back then, I worried almost exclusively about things that directly affected me or my children. Now I tend to worry about larger, philosophical things, existential things, and political things much more than I ever did before. Maybe that’s because I’m not as worried about how my kids are going to turn out, they seem to have turned out quite well after all, so I have to worry about something else. Maybe things are worse now in the world, or maybe I’m so bombarded with news of how worse the world is that it consumes me more than it did twenty years ago before the internet and cable news.

The lesson I take from this experiment is that no matter where I am in life, there will always be things to worry about and almost none of them will end up coming to pass. Maybe all of us need to lighten up, and enjoy the day in front of us since it’s the only one we’ve got.

My Sick Dog

Before I begin today’s blog, can I just say how horribly tedious the internet can be? I just got finished reading a review of the newly released movie, “42”, the story of Jackie Robinson’s rookie year in the majors. I have been waiting for this film for what feels like years now. The story of Jackie Robinson is essentially the story of America coming to grips with the darkness of racism, and the dignified grace of a true trailblazer and one of this country’s finest athletes. The reviewer loved it and I can’t wait to see it. Then I noticed that there were 75 comments to follow. I made the mistake of wading in to this anonymous cess-pool of ignorance, and any good feelings I might have had from reading the review were destroyed by the idiotic, but totally predictable statements. Instead of a robust discussion of Jackie’s struggles, his friendship with Pee Wee Reese, or the complicated motivations of owner Branch Rickey, I was treated to a cat fight between those blaming all liberals for the destruction of the black family, to those blaming all conservatives for the slave trade( I kid you not!). You know what? How about I just stop reading comment threads?

My dog is sick, in fact, she’s a hot mess. We recently noticed some swelling in her back legs, along with some difficulty she is having urinating. Her appetite isn’t as voracious as usual, her eyes are itchy, and now her rear end has started to swell. So we got a rare Saturday appointment at the Vet. Molly was poked and prodded, blood samples were taken, and other tests were run. Through it all she was an angel, only barking whenever anyone entered the front door of the building making the doorbell ring! Like I said, she’s a mess. There are some troubling bumps under her armpits which the Vet suggested might be tick-born, a reaction to being on Prednisone all of her life or…cancer. We won’t know anything until Monday, when she goes back for a follow up. We have some new medicines to give her for the swelling and the pain that she must be in from the looks of it. When the bill came to “only” $235, I was thrilled, which should tell you something about how much money we have spent keeping this dog well all of these years. But if I had it to do all over again I would spend every penny…and more.

Molly has pried her way into the heart of my family since the very first day we brought her home as a puppy 11 years ago. It’s hard to imagine any dog who has had a cushier life, or any dog who has been so universally adored by everyone she meets. Her gentleness, and genuine love of people and their attentions is the stuff of legend. Hundreds of teenagers from Grove, college students from Cedarville and Belmont have fallen under her spell. As someone who has had a dog for nearly all of my 55 years, I can say without contradiction that Molly is both the most intelligent and most obedient dog I have ever owned, an extraordinarily rare combination.

I will do whatever I have to do to prolong her life as long as that life is pain free and she is happy. It will cost whatever it will cost. Some things are more important than money.