I somehow forgot to include one--actually two--significant events when I
wrote this that I had originally planned to mention. Since Memorial Day
is the inspiration for this whole entry, it would be incomplete if I
didn't correct that now.
Memorial
Day is (supposed to be) a time to reflect on the sacrifice of those
that have fought for our freedom. It is a celebration of their heroism.
We honor the celebration part but sometimes (usually?) forget the rest
of that sentence. Be that as it may, Toni and I did have reason to
celebrate that weekend for reasons other than its stated purpose. Back
in 2010, Frodo made his appearance on this planet sometime on the
holiday weekend and when we adopted him from the rescue shelter some
weeks later, our lives were never the same. He was the living embodiment
of the concept of "freedom". His antics--despite having a very, very
rough start--have given us hours of entertainment. He was an inspiration
to the whole pack.
This
infectious joie de vivre lasted for four years to the day (-ish). It
was on memorial day weekend in 2014 that Shiloh, the firstborn who
started on our long path to dog loving, irreparably broke his leg. A
week later my special boy would join his beloved brother Sully, who left
us a mere 8 months earlier, four days before Toni's birthday. (October
has its own list of things to remember...) Shiloh lived the longest (so
far) of all of our boys and showed no signs of slowing down. He even
made me go on a last walk with him, broken leg and all (really, it was
his idea, not mine; we rarely went on actual "walks" since the yard is
so huge). I was devastated.
Looking
back on it now, I wonder if he felt the same way I do now. Sully and
Shiloh were inseparable; they'd been together since birth (actually
before that if you count the time cramped up together in the womb). We
always referred to them together. And they were complete opposites of
each other. Just like Toni and me. Except for the womb part. As far as
she and I were concerned, our lives began the day we found each other.
We always referred to each other as a unit. "PeteAndToni" was one word.
And we were complete opposites. I wonder how Shiloh dealt with his
brother's death during those 8 months he was suddenly without his
lifelong partner. What went through his dog-brain as he tried to make
sense of his life, suddenly alone. Sure he had the rest of the sizable
pack around as well as Toni and me, but it's not the same. Our boys have
always shown a resilience in the face of sudden change and to his
credit Shiloh didn't seem to be different. He was still Shiloh; he
didn't know how to be any other way. He was just like I am now. I'm
still me. But I'm alone. Sure I still have what's left of the pack and
all of my family and all of my friends. But it's not the same. I'm still
me because I don't know how else to be. But there's this big hole that I
don't know how to fill. I feel like my name is now "PeteAnd?"
This entry was just supposed to be a paragraph at the end of the last one, but it got away from me (as my writings tend to do), so I decided to give it its own entry. It's hard to redefine yourself at my age, it seems. When I was young(er) going down a different path was the normal thing to do. Since you have no idea about the world, you try lots of new things to figure out what's best for you. I don't feel like I have time to do that anymore. If I'm wrong, what options do I still have time to try? In my younger days, the kind of mistakes I made took decades to work through. I hope that I'm smarter about my choices now and that won't be an issue. I want to think that the many years of living in the light that Toni shed on me have made the kind of impact on me that so many people, having spent much less time with her, have said she made on them. I mean I know she made an impact on me...duh. I mean I hope it is a lasting one. I hope that her leadership stays with me and guides me, the same way her love held me up all those years. I can still feel her love all around me. It's just that I can't see her when I tell her I love her back. I hope I get used to that. Right now, it just feels kinda strange.
Okay enough for now. Go back to your own lives. Don't miss out on a single thing. There is much to do out there for you. Go and do them. Don't leave any regrets behind. Hmmm. That makes it sound like you should carry them with you wherever you go. I mean quite the opposite. Don't have any regrets to leave behind. Better? Eh. you know what I mean.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Musing on Memorials in the Month of May
May is generally regarded as the month that Spring does its thing. The trees that were budding in April after the long bleak winter have fully awoken and are now thick with leaves. The blossoms and blooms are everywhere in sight in all of their pastel beauty. The smell of fresh-mown grass fills the air. Birds and mammals are starting to raise their families. As are the insects. Frogs and fish are also doing what they do. The promise of life...renews the spirit. It's a wondrous time of year. Hope is all around.
It is no wonder then that I feel the cosmic irony of what May had become for Toni and me over the years. Or at least so it seemed to us
I have already mentioned the loss of our daughter on May 4, 1990. That's when it started. A mere three years later, early in the month of May, we lost a dear friend at the church we had been attending. In the wake of losing Niketa, we had decided not to have children of our own, and I had woosed out of adopting or fostering, so we moved in with Toni's parents and joined a church, becoming very active in their junior church program. As a result, we became very close with the church music director and his wife, Dennis and Barbara Long. Barbara was a nurse and was one of those people that was loved by everyone she met immediately. They were a young couple in their very early 30's with two delightful young children, Christopher and Kara. Not only were they a "perfect" family in spirit, they were a very good-looking bunch, like someone you would find on ShutterStock or in a TV commercial. Before long, Barbara was pregnant with their third child, soon to be named Eric. While she was in the hospital, immediately after giving birth, she caught what I am assuming was necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly--and over-descriptively--referred to as the flesh-eating virus, which is actually bacteria. Within a day, she was gone. Or at least that's how I remember it. The church was packed at her funeral with church-goers and co-workers alike, in absolute shock that something like this could happen to someone so young, so kind and so beautiful. It reminded me of when my mom died. I imagine that the hospital staff were especially affected since this happened to one of their own while they helplessly watched, their efforts in vain. A hollowed-out Dennis eventually recovered thanks to his faith and the support of the congregation. He remarried a few years later and moved away to start over. I wrote more about this incident than I had expected; it stills weighs upon my heart these many years later (the children are all grown now and we have lost contact; but I still remember our happy years together fondly, and still feel the sadness).
Later that same month, my dad died, cementing Toni and my feud with the month of May. My parents got a divorce when I was very young so my dad and I had a very on-again, off-again relationship over the years. I was lucky enough to get to know him a little better before he died. He had been living in the Upper Peninsula for a number of years when my cousin Roxy let me know he was in really bad shape. All those cigarettes had finally caught up with him: lung cancer and emphysema had come to call. He was getting a constant supply of IV blood by the time I got there: it's a 10-hour drive. I don't remember how long he had been in that condition. We drove up there with my Auntie Ann, my dad's older sister and Roxy's mom. The outcome was that a helicopter ride was arranged so that he could come back here so that I could spend his last days with him. The doctor thought it was a bad idea, but we did it anyway, figuring the nursing home could handle things just fine once he got here. I can't believe how naive I was back then, even as "smart" as I was supposed to be about such things. He lasted exactly one night. That was May 23, 1994.
Fast-forward seven years, to 2001. 9-11 hadn't happened yet. Spring had broken and Toni's dad was talking about down-sizing the garden even more than the year before. Toni's mom had passed away almost three years earlier and things were different at the house since. Life always goes on, but changes always seem to turn things upside down and you do what you have to keep the boat afloat. Toni had cared for her parents (I helped too...) as much as she could over their later years (I hear she was an evil child and teen). Part of that care involved unpacking and repacking the hole where his amputated toe used to be. He was diabetic and the toe had become infected and then gangrenous. After Toni's mom passed away, her dad started feeling his age more and his own health declined. A visiting nurse stopped by a couple of times a week to check on him before he passed away. On the day he died, sensing something wasn't right (he had "that look" as she later described it), Toni wanted to stay home with him. But we had a "special meeting" that day: a big announcement was to be made. He assured her he would be alright, and Toni promised that we'd come home right after the meeting. Which we did. We found him on the bed, one shoe off and one shoe on (we had always joked about how long it took him to get his shoes on). He was trying to get ready for his day. Maybe he was going to check out the garden. We'll never know. He didn't get that far. I will never forget Toni's reaction. And I cannot do it justice. In fact, the details are actually quite hazy to me. What I remember is the overall sense of the event: unimaginable rage and grief released as only Toni could. I remember the yelling and the beating of the walls. I waited until the flood subsided enough for me to get close enough to hold her. I think. As I said, the details aren't there much, just the feeling, but it is something I would have done and it doesn't feel like I didn't do it. I do remember eventually holding her. How long all took I have no idea. The thing was, Toni had taken it upon herself to take care of her parents, taken it into herself to do so. And now they were both gone. On her watch. She never forgave herself. But as always, we had to move on. Life had changed yet again. May 9.
Since then, the wounds have healed. Like the gap where Toni's dad's toe used to be had healed over. But even though it had healed, the toe was still missing. It is very much like that when we lose someone. The wound is gone, the pain fades. But the gap in our heart will always be there. I haven't had any major waterworks outbursts in quite a while, but what I have now is burning tears welling up in my eyes. Those will always be there, but the time between them will get longer. I'm glad the whole May death thing has been hibernation for a while now and hope that it continues its absence. Toni and I have been able to enjoy the spring for a while now, and even though she is gone from me (and I am very glad it wasn't in May), I have actually enjoyed this spring as well. The robins' nest on the front porch light is empty now, but never fear, there is another family of robins nested in the bend of the downspout on the back side of the house. The cycle of life is alive and well at the household. Life always goes on. We can hold on and enjoy the ride, or jump off and miss all the wonder. I love a good road trip, don't you?
MAY we all keep a good thought. (You didn't think I could pass up a good pun, did you? (Or a bad one...))
It is no wonder then that I feel the cosmic irony of what May had become for Toni and me over the years. Or at least so it seemed to us
I have already mentioned the loss of our daughter on May 4, 1990. That's when it started. A mere three years later, early in the month of May, we lost a dear friend at the church we had been attending. In the wake of losing Niketa, we had decided not to have children of our own, and I had woosed out of adopting or fostering, so we moved in with Toni's parents and joined a church, becoming very active in their junior church program. As a result, we became very close with the church music director and his wife, Dennis and Barbara Long. Barbara was a nurse and was one of those people that was loved by everyone she met immediately. They were a young couple in their very early 30's with two delightful young children, Christopher and Kara. Not only were they a "perfect" family in spirit, they were a very good-looking bunch, like someone you would find on ShutterStock or in a TV commercial. Before long, Barbara was pregnant with their third child, soon to be named Eric. While she was in the hospital, immediately after giving birth, she caught what I am assuming was necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly--and over-descriptively--referred to as the flesh-eating virus, which is actually bacteria. Within a day, she was gone. Or at least that's how I remember it. The church was packed at her funeral with church-goers and co-workers alike, in absolute shock that something like this could happen to someone so young, so kind and so beautiful. It reminded me of when my mom died. I imagine that the hospital staff were especially affected since this happened to one of their own while they helplessly watched, their efforts in vain. A hollowed-out Dennis eventually recovered thanks to his faith and the support of the congregation. He remarried a few years later and moved away to start over. I wrote more about this incident than I had expected; it stills weighs upon my heart these many years later (the children are all grown now and we have lost contact; but I still remember our happy years together fondly, and still feel the sadness).
Later that same month, my dad died, cementing Toni and my feud with the month of May. My parents got a divorce when I was very young so my dad and I had a very on-again, off-again relationship over the years. I was lucky enough to get to know him a little better before he died. He had been living in the Upper Peninsula for a number of years when my cousin Roxy let me know he was in really bad shape. All those cigarettes had finally caught up with him: lung cancer and emphysema had come to call. He was getting a constant supply of IV blood by the time I got there: it's a 10-hour drive. I don't remember how long he had been in that condition. We drove up there with my Auntie Ann, my dad's older sister and Roxy's mom. The outcome was that a helicopter ride was arranged so that he could come back here so that I could spend his last days with him. The doctor thought it was a bad idea, but we did it anyway, figuring the nursing home could handle things just fine once he got here. I can't believe how naive I was back then, even as "smart" as I was supposed to be about such things. He lasted exactly one night. That was May 23, 1994.
Fast-forward seven years, to 2001. 9-11 hadn't happened yet. Spring had broken and Toni's dad was talking about down-sizing the garden even more than the year before. Toni's mom had passed away almost three years earlier and things were different at the house since. Life always goes on, but changes always seem to turn things upside down and you do what you have to keep the boat afloat. Toni had cared for her parents (I helped too...) as much as she could over their later years (I hear she was an evil child and teen). Part of that care involved unpacking and repacking the hole where his amputated toe used to be. He was diabetic and the toe had become infected and then gangrenous. After Toni's mom passed away, her dad started feeling his age more and his own health declined. A visiting nurse stopped by a couple of times a week to check on him before he passed away. On the day he died, sensing something wasn't right (he had "that look" as she later described it), Toni wanted to stay home with him. But we had a "special meeting" that day: a big announcement was to be made. He assured her he would be alright, and Toni promised that we'd come home right after the meeting. Which we did. We found him on the bed, one shoe off and one shoe on (we had always joked about how long it took him to get his shoes on). He was trying to get ready for his day. Maybe he was going to check out the garden. We'll never know. He didn't get that far. I will never forget Toni's reaction. And I cannot do it justice. In fact, the details are actually quite hazy to me. What I remember is the overall sense of the event: unimaginable rage and grief released as only Toni could. I remember the yelling and the beating of the walls. I waited until the flood subsided enough for me to get close enough to hold her. I think. As I said, the details aren't there much, just the feeling, but it is something I would have done and it doesn't feel like I didn't do it. I do remember eventually holding her. How long all took I have no idea. The thing was, Toni had taken it upon herself to take care of her parents, taken it into herself to do so. And now they were both gone. On her watch. She never forgave herself. But as always, we had to move on. Life had changed yet again. May 9.
Since then, the wounds have healed. Like the gap where Toni's dad's toe used to be had healed over. But even though it had healed, the toe was still missing. It is very much like that when we lose someone. The wound is gone, the pain fades. But the gap in our heart will always be there. I haven't had any major waterworks outbursts in quite a while, but what I have now is burning tears welling up in my eyes. Those will always be there, but the time between them will get longer. I'm glad the whole May death thing has been hibernation for a while now and hope that it continues its absence. Toni and I have been able to enjoy the spring for a while now, and even though she is gone from me (and I am very glad it wasn't in May), I have actually enjoyed this spring as well. The robins' nest on the front porch light is empty now, but never fear, there is another family of robins nested in the bend of the downspout on the back side of the house. The cycle of life is alive and well at the household. Life always goes on. We can hold on and enjoy the ride, or jump off and miss all the wonder. I love a good road trip, don't you?
MAY we all keep a good thought. (You didn't think I could pass up a good pun, did you? (Or a bad one...))
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)