Unintended Consequences

I’m not one to complain about the weather. Why would I? What difference would it make? It’s like when you ask someone…usually an older someone…and often a male someone…how he’s doing. Sometimes he’ll answer, “Can’t complain.”, and a voice inside my head adds, “And it wouldn’t do any good if you did.”

Despite my physical aversion to colder weather, I never complained when spring took her time getting here. I adapted instead. I looked upon the situation as an excuse to purchase a few more sweaters with three-quarter-length sleeves. I love sweaters with three-quarter-length sleeves. They are some of my favorite things. I especially love them if they are made from cashmere.

One of my friends was particularly irritated by people complaining about having to wear shoes in Atlanta in April. As it happens, she was born in South Dakota. I don’t think she’s lived in Georgia very long which would explain why she isn’t aware that, by April, most southerners are organizing their flip-flops according to outfit and/or occasion. She took to Facebook, warning anyone bemoaning cooler temperatures that they had better not complain about sweating in July or she’d be there to remind them they’d gotten just what they’d asked for. I’m guessing she hasn’t had to make good on that promise. Not because she’s a particularly scary person. And, not because people finally realized that complaining about the heat doesn’t cool things off.

My friend hasn’t had to remind anyone how they wished for Atlanta heat because Atlanta hasn’t gotten hot yet…not really hot…not Atlanta hot. Atlanta hasn’t gotten hot yet because during the month of June we received 9 1/2 inches of rain. And, since that time, it’s rained every day in July. So far this year we’ve accumulated almost 42 inches of rain which is more than we had for the entire year last year.

Sometime around the middle of June people began to complain. Often, mine was the lone voice of dissent. As the minder of a garden, I didn’t dare complain. For years I watched my garden literally burn to the ground because of lack of rain. There’s no way I would complain now…unless it is to bemoan missing melons. I planted melons, you see, and something ate them. I assumed the culprits to be rabbits until I spotted a pair of deer strolling casually through a neighbor’s yard. They stopped, on their way down the street, to nibble on roses.

Back then, in the middle of June, when only about 30 inches of rain had fallen, melons seemed like a good idea. Thirty inches of rain is enough water to fill lots of watermelons. Now though, some twelve inches later, I’ve begun to see that too much of a good thing really is too much. A melon, you see, begins as a blossom. A bee spies the blossom, and then he sees another one, and another one, and so on, and so on, and before you know it…mini-melons! But bees don’t like rain. Even in a light rain, a bee can’t leave its nest. And a blossom without a bee is just a flower.

So much water in such a short time changes things.

The chicken pen is under water. Seeing their ugly little toes disappear into the muck time after time as they rush to greet me reminded me of jungle rot, a podiatric malady soldiers in Vietnam often battled. Last weekend I put down boards for them to walk on. My chickens haven’t had as much as a sniffle in six years. Its bad enough they’ve had to learn to eat off a dinner plate. I can’t take a chance with jungle rot.

My flowers are drowning.

My floors are muddy.

My dogs are smelly.

And, don’t even get me started on my hair.

I’m willing to concede that, aside from the health of my hens, most of my worries are negligible.

And then I read about the snakes.

It makes perfect sense when you think it through, which I never would have done if I hadn’t read that a local newscaster was hospitalized with a snake bite. The sequence goes something like this: many bugs don’t do rain which means things that eat bugs are forced to forage. Foraging, as it happens, often requires travel outside of one’s usual hunting grounds and, thus, increased time outside of the nest. Guess what eats the things that would eat bugs but are now having to hunt?

Snakes.

And, here’s another twist. Just like my chickens who now spend ninety percent of their time inside the henhouse, snakes are tired of being wet. Only they don’t have a house of their own, so guess what? That’s right! They’re not picky! They’ll use yours. Right now, in Atlanta, the average wait time to have a pest control company out to your house to remove rain weary vermin is two weeks; two weeks of sharing your house with something that slithers. No. Way.

My seventh grade teacher, Mrs. White, marched with Martin Luther King. She played guitar and taught us folk songs and regaled us with stories from her past. One story involved a snake. It’s the one I remember.

She’d gotten up in the middle of the night to pee. For whatever reason, she didn’t turn on the light in the bathroom until after she’d done her business. That’s when she saw the snake, coiled around and around and around the inside of the toilet bowl. Having carried this image around in my head lo these many years, you can believe I toilet with the lights on, and only after careful inspection. And there’s no loitering. When I was a kid, my father’s bathroom always smelled like newsprint. He obviously hadn’t heard the story.

Yesterday the rain held off until rush hour. This is not unusual. In fact, yesterday was the second time I’ve sat in traffic and watched marble-sized hail gather on my windshield wipers before being swooshed off to ping the car in the lane next to mine.

By the time I arrived home, hail had given way to torrential rain and pounding thunder. My dogs don’t care for storms. Usually they’re too nervous to eat. But when it rains every day for weeks, something’s got to give. Murphy, my boxer, followed me into the sunroom willingly enough but minutes later, after I’d gone back inside, I heard his super-sized claws hit the industrial strength screen we installed to protect the French door from just that type of abuse. He gave a jerk of his head when I opened the door; our signal that he wanted company. I sank into one of the rocking chairs I’d drug in off the patio during an earlier storm, and immediately wished I’d grabbed my Iphone. For a few seconds, I considered going back in to get it. I could play a word, check in on Facebook, or read an email. The sound of rain hitting the roof called me back. I realized this was an opportunity to just be, and I don’t get enough of those.

I give the rocking chair a push and fold my arms over my lower abdomen, appreciating the softness of a little extra padding. Looking around, I realize I never really see this room. I’d forgotten, for example, about the funky wine bottles and vintage tin signs I sat on shelves next to the ceiling. I’ve downsized from a plethora of plants to a table covered in cactuses and hung, above them, twinkle lights encased in aluminum stars separated by wind chimes. I’ve left my mark here.

The sound of azalea branches scraping windowpanes turns my attention outside the room. The wind is blowing. The sky is unnaturally bright. Maybe the sun, too, has had to adjust; taking any opportunity to shine.

I wonder how the chickens are faring. It’s cooler now, after the hail.

When did my head tilt to one side…ever so slightly…the way it does just before a nap?

When did my eyes close?

The rocking has slowed.

Sleep could come.

Would he be disappointed if I slept through dinner?

I Feel Lucky

The advocate working at the rescue center wasn’t completely honest.

We were looking for a boxer. We left with a shepherd-mix.

“Look! See the way she uses her front paws? I’m sure she’s part boxer! She has to be!”

It really didn’t matter. She had already spoken to me through limpid brown eyes that said, “I’ve seen a lot of things I’d rather I hadn’t.” We had much in common.

She was thin. Despite the “impeccable care” provided by her previous owner, heartworms had invaded her body, dictating she ingest large amounts of poison over several weeks which the veterinarian hoped would kill the worms before killing the host.

Lucky did what she’d always done. She survived.

She rode, stoically, in the back seat on the way to her new home, and upon arriving, acted as any dog would when introduced to new environs. Loping from room to room, she encountered my six-year-old son, who felt the exuberance of his new pet down to the ends of his fingers which he attempted to wrap around Lucky’s head in pursuit of a sloppy dog-kiss. What he got instead, was a nip to the nose, and as I attempted to calm him I looked into sad, brown pools of regret and wondered who felt worse, the biter or the bitten. The large scar over Lucky’s left eye assured me she knew the humiliation of attack.

She barks a lot, sounding off anytime a walked dog parades in front of the house. And, it isn’t necessary to look out the window to know that the pot-bellied pig is grazing in the grass across the street. Lucky is always on guard.

Our other two dogs give Lucky a wide berth as she has, on separate occasions, let each of them know she is boss. And, if their play gets out of hand, it is Lucky who steps in to referee a peaceful conclusion. Lucky’s maternal instincts survived the surgery evidenced by the tattoo burned into her lower abdomen.

The office is quiet as I read what I have just written. A scraping sound grabs my attention, and I turn to see Lucky standing at the door to the puppy’s metal-fenced crate. She lifts her paw, resting it against the wire until I reach out to open the door.

The eyes she turns on me tell me all I need to know as she lowers her head and slowly enters the space. She lies down, looking at me once more, before placing her snout on her fawn-colored paws.

Strange dogs parade by our house unannounced. Revelry ensues in another room, unabated. Lucky curls up inside a small, secure space, and rests.

Southern Snow

Snow falls as thick, fluffy, wads of ice that slap the tops of puddles left by yesterday’s rain.

The grumbling sound of thunder accompanies the shouts of children undeterred from summer pastimes, as a baseball splits the flakes on its way to a tobogganed batter.

Paddled cactus fronds bend with fluffy, white weight.

Birds jump about leaving three-pronged impressions in the green and white lawn, while, seeing them, the dog pauses at the back door, unwilling to brave the blizzard despite the temptation.

But, he watches.

From his perch in front of the windows, his ears perk as he watches white stuff fall from a pewter colored sky, covering everything it touches. He watches hooded, mittened children run and play, and gather slush, crunching it between hands they no longer feel, before hurtling it at the nearest unsuspecting target. I wonder what he thinks…

I join him at the window, and wrapping myself in my own arms as a guard against the icy glass, we marvel at the wonder and beauty of a southern snow.

Undercover Runner

Anyone who knows me will tell you I am not, by nature, a runner. I don’t have the vibe.

Athletic clothes don’t look chic when pulled over my frame. They don’t even look particularly athletic, unless you consider a frump athletic. I don’t carry a bottle of water everywhere I go, and my sneakers don’t look as though they have been run over by a car multiple times. And, if you see me on a street corner, I will not be running in place in preparation to dart across the sidewalk. I will, instead, have both arms out, wing-like with fingers splayed, in an effort to hold back the child who may or may not be accompanying me. Old habits die hard.

I still look back in horror at the days of the one-piece, polyester, blue-and-white-pinstriped jumpsuit we were forced to wear in PE class. It was the era of the “President’s Council on Physical Fitness Award”, wherein middle-aged jocks with large plastic whistles invoked the memory of JFK to “inspire” children to meet a set of standards set by the federal government. One entire quarter of the school year was set aside for this endeavor, and it quickly became the longest three months of my life.

One day a week we began our day under a cloud of steam emitted by our pre-pubescent mouths. Inside the black asphalt track, the football field sparkled as dewdrops fought the sun’s effort to reclaim them. The runners bounced in anticipation, while the rest of us huddled with arms wrapped around our shapeless midsections, and grimaced against the cold. As the coach approached in his year-round uniform of t-shirt over unattractive, polyester shorts, featuring a six-inch waistband and very deep pockets, I scanned my group of shivering non-runners for the easiest mark, and set my preliminary goal of not coming in last. By the end of the quarter, I had reevaluated. My new goal was, simply, to survive. Recently, though, my experience has served me well.

In the public school system, PE is now treated as an elective that is placed in rotation with Home Economics, Computer Science, and Spanish. So far this school year, my son has learned his way around a kitchen, and mastered at least twenty words in Spanish. He returned from Christmas break full of anticipation for six weeks of PE. His excitement, however, ended when the coach, wearing a t-shirt over unattractive, polyester shorts featuring a six-inch waistband and very deep pockets, raised a large plastic whistle to his lips, signaling the class to run.

Shane is athletic. He has played football for five years. He has excelled in basketball for four years, and fills the time in between with baseball. A couple of weeks ago, I met his descent from the school bus with my usual question.

“How was your day?”

“Crummy.”, he growled.

“I’m sorry. What happened?”

“PE”, was all he said.

“PE? You love PE! You were looking forward to it!”

“Yeah…”, he began. “That was before we had to run.” JFK may be a distant memory, but the President’s Council on Physical Fitness is, apparently, functioning without him.

I smiled down at my notably athletic progeny before saying, “Let me tell you a story.”

I used to joke that if you saw me running you could be sure someone was chasing me. That was before middle-age, and the realization that a simple change in dietary habits no longer reaps the same reward it did twenty years ago. At this time in my life, physical activity is just as important as logging every morsel of food that passes my lips.

I live just minutes from a park that boasts two well-maintained walking tracks. White concrete snakes over several acres between tennis courts and baseball diamonds, and a “nature trail” winds through towering pines behind the football field. The sound of my hurried, measured footsteps barely pierces the music piped into my ears through tiny, white earphones. By keeping my eyes down, I can get into “the zone”, and walk for miles. But when I raise my eyes, I see them; the runners. Loping by me, their long strides mock as I realize they will probably lap me again before I reach the end of the trail.

I want to run, but find it so boring, so tedious. And there is, of course, the picture in my mind of me running, complete with blue-and-white pinstriped, polyester jumpsuit…

Last week, the sun burned the frost out of the air, inviting me to venture outside in my shirt-sleeves. Exhilarated, I fought my puppy’s gangly legs into his harness and attached the leash.

“Let’s go, boy!”, were the last words I would speak before re-entering the house.

Murphy, my five-month-old boxer, headed out at a dead gallop. I resisted him at first, but, upon seeing the joy in his limited freedom, I followed his lead. And, we ran. We ran downhill, and around corners. We ran uphill in the center of the street. We ran into cul-de-sacs, down to the entrance of our subdivision, and back.

As I repeated the harness process, in reverse, I marveled at how good I felt. I felt loose, I felt fit, I felt athletic! And, the difference was made by my companion. Running on the other end of Murphy’s leash freed me from the inhibitions inherent in my awkward appearance in athletic clothing, and stopping to catch my breath warranted no explanation, as everyone knows running dogs stop every few feet to sniff. The presence of a dog changed the entire premise of the activity while keeping me entertained. I’m not putting myself out there as a runner, I’m just a football-Mom on the other end of a leash.

Seven Day Mental Diet: Day Two-Attention

“I stole the outside
Runnin’ into the sun
I ‘m alive
I’m loud, as a golden gun
I killed my pride
So once again I’d see

Live and learn
You’ve fallen, one thousand times
I feel the burn
There’s fire from a crazy sky
I sealed concern
So once again I’d be

[Chorus]
And it lifts you up
Then it puts you down
And it feeds you life
Then it lets you drown
While it holds your heart
Then it slowly tears you apart
And you know – that life is what I mean”

For the last several weeks, these words have jump-started my work-day. As Beth Hart slides into my CD player, “Lifts You Up” draws me in with guitar chords before pulsing, staccato drumbeats drive my hands against the steering wheel. Midway through the song, I’m dancing in the driver’s seat and singing at the top of my lungs. It depends on the day; some days, once is enough, others, like this morning, for instance, it takes three plays.

It was a late night, as are so many; making the sound of the alarm nothing more than a harsh reminder of the cold conditions outside my flannel cocoon. I rise, finally, allowing myself thirty minutes to complete a morning ritual that requires a minimum of forty-five. As I race about the house, my eye strays to an array of clocks in a variety of rooms, until, shrugging on my jacket, one last glance assures me I will be at least fifteen minutes late for work.
Strapped in, I man the wheel with one hand and crank the volume with the other. My toe taps the gas pedal in anticipation of rousing drumbeats, as I muse, again, on the lateness of my departure. The first red-light catches me, and as I sit, and tap, and finger the steering wheel, Rhonda Byrne’s soothing tones flow in underneath Beth’s growl, and I remember.

There is an entire passage in “The Secret” dealing with time, and its relativity to our existence. Quite honestly, when listening to it, this portion of the book is usually scrambled by the white noise that plays in my brain whenever numbers are required to understand a maxim. Fortunately, Ms. Byrne chose to illustrate her point with a life situation I experience on a regular basis, as she suggests an alternative to worrying about time. Following her suggestion, I remind myself, over and over again, to mentally repeat the following mantra, which I still hear in a lovely Australian accent: “I have MORE than enough time.” And, this morning, my one and a quarter hour trip was completed in one hour. This is not the first time this has happened, and, after today, it will not be the last.

I must admit, day two of my The Seven Day Mental Diet did not go as swimmingly as the first. As Joy related her husband’s disappointment in a vacation cancelled by economic forecasts, I found myself leaning forward, eager to share my own war story. As my co-workers sniped about a particularly difficult customer, I threw in my two cents, without a second thought. And on the way home, as I rolled in behind another weary commuter, I eyed the streams of glowing red lights in front of me, and realized rush-hour traffic was compounded by its proximity to a popular shopping mall and Christmas sales.

It was while bemoaning my sad state to an unfortunate caller that I realized how far I had strayed from my original goal, and I immediately slung one leg back over the saddle. Since that time, despite unruly dogs, the realization that my son’s cellphone is, indeed, dead, and math homework, I have maintained a positive outlook. And, I have learned….
I have realized that, for me, maintaining a positive outlook will require fervent attention; that while sneaking a glance at a clock I must remind myself that “I have MORE than enough time”. And, when friends invoke the misery of their days, I can smile knowingly, without comment, before leaving them to their travails. And, when a particularly unhappy customer bends my ear, I can picture them as they are; sad, lonely, in need of an audience.

“So from the beginning the fight we were winning…”

We are not, generally speaking, a family of tradition…

Quilts and afghans, created by my great-grandmother, out of a sense of need rather than an expression of creativity, draped the top of a battered box of castaways, labeled for curb-side pick up. Decades-old ceramic dinner plates, depicting a green-hued scene of men in powdered wigs and frock-coats, were discarded as soon as the cardboard box containing geometrically patterned stoneware was opened. My favorite jelly glass, the one depicting Fred Flintstone piloting his ragtop, is gone.

For years, we shared holiday dinners with a family of Chicagoan transplants, who preferred butter over margarine, and felt like pickled peaches were a viable food choice. Until, we didn’t.

Understandably, I was flummoxed, when upon herding my burgeoning family around the massive, dark-stained dining table of my youth, a request was made for a show of gratitude. One-by-one, each anticipatory diner rattled off an item for thanksgiving. A furtive glance told me I was fourth in line. My mind fractured; one side struggled with personal performance, while the other hoped my children wouldn’t embarrass me, or, worse yet, themselves. Blessedly, we all managed to extrapolate an acceptable offering, and I made a mental note to never come unprepared, again.

For several years, we took our seats and racked our brains, as steam wafted off the stuffing. Until, we didn’t.

Today, as I danced about my kitchen to a soundtrack only I could hear, I adjusted my earphones with one hand, stirred a cheese sauce with the other, and found myself wishing someone would ask the question. For once; I am prepared.

This has not been an easy year for me. In March, I lost my best friend. He had red hair, and a goofy smile, and, as far as he was concerned, the sun rose, and set, in my eyes. He died peacefully; but, he died. Hundreds of dollars spent to insure his comfort afforded me little solace as I stood over him, willing that breath not be his last.

Two of my sons lost their jobs, and their home, in one fell swoop. For a mother, it doesn’t get any harder than this. The fact that their change of fate was hastened by a cherished family member only sweetened the blow….

I began work as a hospice volunteer this year. Within two months of my first visit I had lost two patients. Death is not an easy thing to see. “Natural causes” render a person to a most unnatural state.

Personally, I continue to ride a roller coaster I seem to have ridden so long, that the foam-enhanced seats carry a permanent imprint of my ass. And still, I grab the roll bar, finger rusty metal exposed by fidgeting fingers chipping paint, roll my lips back, and meet the rushing wind, helter-skelter.

And..it’s alright….

The roller coaster is mine to ride, or not. No matter how many times I stand on queue to ride it, it always stops. Sooner, or later, it rolls to a stop, laden with fading screams; and, as I dismount, it is my decision whether or not to rejoin the queue.

After two months of ambivalent effort, I took a leave of absence from hospice work. I have only one patient of the original three, and, some days, I am sure she will outlive me. As I stop to focus on other things, I pray she will know me upon my return.

Both of my sons found new careers. One is happy, and one, his mother’s son, works hard at it, every day.

And, tomorrow, Murphy comes to live with me. He won’t be Otis. He couldn’t be. But, he might be my best friend.

Twelve years ago, I was handed a prescription for anti-depressants, which I immediately filled with all the enormity the diminutive, curly-locked doctor imported.

“Bad” days became less bad.

“Good” days, became colorless.

I’ve tried, many times, to handle life on my own terms, only to find her overbearing…until I didn’t.

Hair Trigger Heart

The smell of bacon frying takes me back to my mother’s formica-topped breakfast table just as the scent of a sage-encrusted turkey roasting, ignites an undertone of pine, only I can smell.

The music of my youth digs deep, unearthing the angst and abandon of cloistered nights behind my bedroom door. Green shag carpeting under pre-pubescent bare feet is all that keeps the needle from skipping across black vinyl, as I dance and sing before an adoring audience that exists only in my vividly feminine imagination.

Unless it has a disco beat…

Throbbing bass beats in time to my eighteen-year-old heart, as I stand beside a strobe-lit dance floor, in flustered anticipation of mimicking moves I have only seen on film. Night fever….

A passage from a well-paged book often gently places me back under my flannel blanket, and trains the glow of my reading light on a single, sweet moment in time.

And the sight of a carefully manicured, moonlit shrub can put a leash in my hand, as I walk in a softly southern late-night rain, and remember the joy of feeling.

Night music

There is a pattern to my nights.

As I emerge, steaming, from a hot bath, carrying a pile of laundry, I am accompanied by the tick-tap of dog claws on hardwood. My emergence, and the bundle I carry can mean only one thing; treats!

They wait, patiently, as I deposit the laundry, and two pairs of liquid brown eyes follow my hand into the cookie/dog-treat jar. As they crunch their prizes, I walk to the back door and open it, in anticipation of a final trip outside.

As they join me, tails wagging, I close the door behind me in an effort to quell any thoughts of re-entering prematurely.

Freshly bathed, my dampened skin welcomes the soft, warm, Georgia-night breezes, which are not lost on the Beagle, as his nose lifts high and quivers in appreciation.

I walk the walk towards the gate while observing nightfall on my gardens. Brightly colored hibiscus winks as I pass, palm fronds sway, and roses send their scent, lest I forget their presence beyond the swath of yellow cast by the porch light.

As it is occasionally, our quiet exaltation is interrupted by the singing of a siren heading in the direction of those less fortunate. Both animals halt in their tracks, their busy noses still in silent question.

They turn to look at me; at me, Alpha-female, for guidance. It is a position I have won through time, patience, and dogged perseverence, and I know what I must do.

I wait, until the siren has reached it’s crescendo. And, I begin; low at first, then building. My sound becomes louder, the tone becomes higher, until they pick it up; first the half-breed, and then the Beagle; two aquiline noses pierce the air and twitch in unison…and we howl.

The siren wails, as do we, until, realizing that our inspiration is now distant, faint, and failing, I allow the two born to this sound to finish their song, alone.

And, as we turn towards the door, and the interior our quiet house, they smile, and wag in appreciation of my leadership, and my love.

The Keeper

I’d been working in the gardens all morning. The arrival of fall brings with it a whole new set of obligations to my landscape, and more opportunities for therapy in the form of pruning, shaping, digging, and watering.

Caught inside my thoughts, I held the sprayer over purple tinged leaves. The soft thud hardly registered. The ensuing scuffle did, and instantly I knew what was happening behind me.

I turned the sprayer on the dog, knowing her dislike of all things wet, and hoping it would supersede her dislike of small, furry animals. The sprayer won, and the squirrel lay in the pine straw; twisted unreasonably, breathing heavily.

I ran inside the house to find him at the computer, deeply engrossed in a sports blog.

“Come.”, my tone and my retreating back left no room for argument.

He took one look, and shooed me inside.

Several minutes later, he returned.

“It’s ok.”, he said, as he lowered himself into the chair while giving the mouse a shake.

As a friend of mine likes to say…

“This one’s a keeper.”

Otis

He sat tall, wedged between his two new brothers. His tongue lolled lazily from one side of his generous mouth, his ears perked, and his eyes sparkled and shone with a sense of adventure.
As I looked into my rear view mirror, he answered my gaze with a look that said “Hey, Mom, where are we going?”
We had just met.
Just over a year old, Otis was a live-wire bundle of energy. During his first week in our home, he led us on several long chases through the streets of our subdivision, and the one adjacent to ours, as he exercised his sense of adventure, and our unaccustomed legs. Several times during the chase, he would stop to smell a flower, or investigate an errant piece of trash and move nothing but the quivering tip of his large black nose until our pounding footsteps fell within a few feet of our prey. And he was off again, in a mad dash, that was, for him, a joyful game.
Blessedly, as he became more accustomed to his surroundings and more attached to his family, the game lost it’s lustre, and Otis settled into his new home.
Once acclimated, his manners were impeccable, and one only had to say “Otis, where are you supposed to be?” and he would back away from the kitchen table and just over the piece of floor trim separating the kitchen and den. Once there, he would slowly lower his hips and sit patiently until the meal was finished. His eyes, though, never left the crumb-strewn floor beneath my son’s ill-placed chair.
Otis never met a stranger. He loved everyone and everything, and elicited the same emotion in everyone he met. He was pure love.
Weekends were his favorite, as he waited patiently for the recliner to be filled as the football game started. Seizing the opportunity, he climbed slowly into the space reserved for him, and wedged his large body, long-ways, into the space. Then, lowering his head to his outstretched paws, he slept, peacefully, for hours.
He was a great gardening buddy, loping behind me around the yard as I pruned and planted. He sniffed every flower placed in pot or bed, and took great pleasure from the sweet, earthy smell
of freshly dug soil, while happily sharing in the digging.
It was during these times outside, and in the kitchen, that Otis was most attentive, studying my every move as though in preparation for the time when he would be asked to complete the task on his own. He, and he alone, was allowed to share my galley-style kitchen during cooking, as he stood, alertly, just out of my way, but close enough to scoop up any falling debris after I moved away. He loved Christmas cooking the most, and waited, patiently, for the crackling sound of a bag of chocolate chips being opened. Otis loved chocolate, and particularly chocolate chips. He stood, still as a statue, as I wrestled with the bag, nose twitching, and only moved when I held a single chip between two fingers and invited him to take it.
If anyone loved Eufuala as much as I, it was Otis. He began the trip at the window, watching traffic and taking occasional gulps of exhaust-filled air, but, very soon, he stretched out in the back of the SUV and succumbed to the lullaby sung by spinning wheels.
On arrival, he lumbered slowly out of the back and stretched, languidly, as his nose caught the scent of the water. The race was on to see who would reach the dock first. Once there, we stood in companionable silence as close to the lake as we could get, gratefully allowing her peace and serenity to wash away the road dust. We gave thanks to her when we arrived, and Otis always insisted on one last walk before we left, as if to assure her we would be back.
His grace and dignity served right up to the end, as he faced serious illness with remarkable aplomb. Despite significant weight loss, disturbing tremors, and piles of appetite reducing pills which included embarrassingly productive diuretics, he never lost his spirit or his will to live, outlasting most doctors’ predictions. He fought to eat, he fought to breathe, and through it all continued to spread his special kind of love.
The void he leaves is multi-faceted.
He was the only dog I ever knew who preferred to sleep with his head on the pillow. This came in handy on cold nights spent in a half-empty bed.
He appreciated a captive audience, nosing open the slightly ajar bathroom door, to stand in front of the throne upon which I perched, offering the sweet valley between his eyes for a nuzzle and a kiss.
He valiantly guarded the bathroom door as I bathed, and I prefer to think it was my safety that motivated him, and not the dog treat he knew was waiting in the kitchen.
He ended every night, before settling in on an assortment of pillows spread for his comfort, by coming to the side of the bed and placing his large head quietly next to mine in a request for a final rub and a goodnight kiss.
And, on unsettled nights when sleep wouldn’t come, Otis silently accompanied me in my wanderings of dark hallways. When, at last, I sat, he followed suit, giving me a look that said, “You know, if you need me, I’m right here.”