I promised I would never leave you
And you should always know
Where ever you may go
No matter where you are
I never will be far away...
- "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) by Billy Joel
So, at some point I knew I was going to have to write about this.
You’d think, after the events of last year, that I would be better at coping with this type of thing, but, no. The way I manage just seems to keep changing. The way I grieve? It’s bordering on the self-destructive side of things. What happens to grief when one is no longer merely sad?
This one. It leaves me… bankrupt. I simply want to roll into a little ball.
You see, my life began, again, when Beau came into it. Before that, I was living through a period of an all-time low; uncommitted to continuing – I didn’t see the point. Back in 1996, life as I had known it was over. A vapor. For some reason I was still alive, but wasn’t sure why. I felt I had nothing to live for.
And then, one day, in the fall, I was on my way into a local Menards to buy an area rug to warm up this awful little apartment I had just rented in a shitty neighborhood in South Minneapolis when our eyes met. His were so large and scared. I recognized the look, for it was the same one I had seen that morning in the mirror as I prepared to shave and get on with another day. A frazzled woman was holding him, with a small girl clinging to her side. They were all three just standing there in front of the main entrance to this store. I approached and asked what kind of dog it was and her reply startled me. “Do you want him?”
He was a four month old Rat Terrier/Chihuahua mix brought up from North Carolina. He was absolutely adorable. They had to get rid of him because they had just moved into a motel that didn’t accept dogs. At the time I was not all that sure that I was physically or emotionally ready to take care of a dog, but I told her that I would think about it as I shopped and if the dog was still there when I finished, maybe I would take him off their hands. Truth was, I had already fallen in love with him and just wanted to buy some time. I shopped quickly, for I was really hoping he would still be there when I got through the check line.
He was. And I had just told the woman that I would take him, when this old woman walked up and said “I just lost my dog. I want a new one. I’ll take him.” Part of me wanted to fight for him, but then part of me continued to wonder if I was ready to take on such a responsibility. Maybe the old woman could provide a better home, a better life. Maybe the fates were stepping in to ensure that this little guy had a great life.
So I let the old woman take him. I gave her my number and told her to call me if it didn’t work out. I watched as the little girl cried as the old woman took the dog and the dog’s toys. His name was Bobo.
The next day, as I sort of hoped and expected, the old woman called me and told me to come get the dog. She had four steps she had to go up and down to get to her yard, and she didn’t want to risk that on an on-going basis. I drove to Richfield to pick him up. I was very excited. I walked into her house and there he was; his eyes still as big and scared as ever. But I also caught a glint of something else. Something joyful. I scooped him up, grabbed all his things, and made my way to my vehicle.
Once inside, he settled down on my lap immediately. He wasn’t scared. As we drove away, he fell asleep and I thought, wow, he must be a very experienced traveller. I told him that I would never leave him. That he would always have a home with me and that I would do my best to provide a safe and clean environment. And that he would never go hungry or want for anything.
And I did. I kept my promises. I got my act together and created a better place for him, and in the process, one for myself, as well. Within a year I was out of that crummy apartment and Beau (as I renamed him), had a fenced in yard and lovely place to live. He was the start of my new commitment to life and to living.
We travelled a great deal together. I worried about him whenever I had to travel without him, never quite trusting whomever I arranged to take care of him. I was as protective as I could be.
He survived being attacked by a pit bull. We were walking in a park and the owner of the pit bull lost control of his dog. It was an ugly, messy, scene – one which sent both Beau and me to the emergency room. He survived a series of seizures during his first year. I spent a lot of money at the U of M trying to find out why he would suddenly only be able to walk backwards before rolling into a little ball of pain. It was freaky and terrifying to witness. Fortunately he grew out of it.
He was smart. I taught him a series of tricks, including “Bang, You’re Dead” and “Kill The Baby”. He was a quick study. He loved his toys. And he was nice. He would growl at babies and puppies younger than himself, but other than that, he loved everyone. Trusted everyone, instantly.
He had so much personality. He was one of the few dogs that I’d ever met that actually smiled. He had such poise, too. I’ve never been so smitten in my entire life.
But years go by… and as they do, we tend to take for granted that the one thing that has been a constant source of stability, acceptance, strength, joy, and love – will always be there. The last three years of his life it was like living with a hostile adolescent. He loved his brother Paco, and even welcomed Mona, but when they died, he was the only dog again, and I noticed how attentive he suddenly was again. I think he really wanted to be the only dog. Then Millie came into our lives and took a lot of attention.
Beau knew I loved him. I told him often enough. I would imagine my life without him and simply ache. I didn’t know how I would handle it.
On a crisp, Sunday morning, I had the dogs out in the front yard with me, talking with a neighbor over the fence. The conversation ended, I took Millie back in the house, but left Beau to sniff around the front gardens. A few moments later, I heard Beau make a lot of noise. Some people were walking two large dogs past our front gate. Beau must have been racing up and down the length of the fence. Suddenly I heard him yelp, as if he had been hurt. I raced to the front yard. The people with the dogs were walking away, as they did, one of them said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s not that bad.” But it was. I picked up Beau and knew, right then and there – it was the beginning of the end.
Multiple trips to the emergency vet and my regular vet. Not a good candidate for surgery; enlarged heart, age. Nothing they can do. The pain meds make him loopy. He can’t stand to pee. I sleep on the floor next to his bed. The vet takes him off the pain meds. He’s in a great deal of pain and cries. I put him back on the pain meds. Six days of this. No more.
We make that final trip. I talk to him. The vet gives us lots of time to say good-bye. I tell him, “I always thought we had more time.” He’s 14 years old. 14 years, 4 months, 19 days. I didn’t have a birthdate for him, but I estimated that he must have been born around April 1st, so I chose that as his birthday, and we celebrated it every year.
My little April’s fool.
I handle it all much better than I thought. At least, on the face of things. But secretly – and now, not so secretly – I’m crushed. My self-destructive tendencies are running a bit amok. I do a great job of covering it. But it will catch up to me. Sooner. Later.
The house is so quiet now. No more shedding dog. No more barking as I prepare the dog food. One less dish to prepare. No more hopeful glances from across the room. He was only 10 lbs., but emotionally, he took up a lot of room in my house.
Yes, I regret not taking him for more walks (he loved them so). I regret choosing to do things over spending time with him. I regret that I couldn’t make him the only dog in my house. He had a wonderful life. That’s what everyone tells me. But I know it could have been better.
And mostly, I blame myself. Had I not left him in that front yard he wouldn’t have twisted his back. He’d still be here. He was a very healthy 14 year-old. He was the best dog, ever.
Millie and I manage. At first, she spent a lot of time looking for him – trying to find his scent. She’s blind, but she knew something had changed. I don’t think she misses him much, if at all, now. Still, the house seems so quiet. And when I’m not there, I’m sure she notices that being alone is different without Beau around.
I notice it, too. Even with Millie sitting on my lap, I feel, very much – alone.
So, I haven’t been able to write much since August, 14th, the day Beau injured himself. My mind feels fragmented; my focus non-existent.
I don’t know what comes next. I don’t want to regroup. I don’t want to hunker down. I don’t want to refocus on something more positive. I don’t want to go to therapy. I don’t want to go to the doctor’s. I don’t want to take pills. I don’t want to do… anything.
I don’t. And then I over-indulge in something that is not healthy. I do things that don’t feel good.
But then – I don’t feel much. Not much of anything. So, does that mean I’m handling it? Does that mean I’m doing okay? It’s like waiting for the flood wall to burst. Am I punishing myself? Or is it because I can’t feel anything… so doing something that makes me feel worse, something hurtful… is feeling something bad better than not feeling at all?
So, what happens to grief when one is no longer merely sad?
Stay tuned.
And like a ship out on the ocean
I'm rocking you to sleep
The water's dark and deep
Inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me
On Valentine’s Day I met my folks for breakfast at our usual Sunday spot. Near the end of the meal my Mom asked me if I would mind taking Dad off her hands for a few hours while she ran some errands. I said, sure, no problem. I didn’t really have anything planned for the day, other than spending time with my dogs, so a few hours with my Dad wouldn’t be displacing any activity of value.
My dad is 75 years old and has Alzheimer’s. He’s a shadow of his former self; and something of a stranger to me now. I know that I’m a stranger to him. He frequently has no idea who I am. My Mom fairs a bit better on the recognition front, though on occasion he tells me she is “just that nice lady that takes care of me”. It breaks her heart to hear it. This disease has a tendency to do that – break hearts.
Though a handful at times - my Dad is fairly easy to manage. It’s important that he remain in somewhat familiar surroundings. We have to make sure that when eating there is not too much noise and that the table is cleared of extraneous items. Clutter, along with patterns on the table cloth or place mat or more than three items of food on his plate can cause him to become distracted. He fails to comprehend that the patterns are part of the cloth. He thinks he can physically pick them up, and would spend hours trying to do so if we did not intercede. Too many food choices cause him to freeze up; unable to decide what to eat first; he would end up eating nothing. There was a time when television held his attention – especially Westerns. But now the only thing he seems to enjoy is Tom and Jerry cartoons. Coloring was also a favorite activity, but that has gone by the wayside as well, though he still likes collecting and arranging the crayons.
In fact, collecting things seems to be one of his favorite activities, especially at stores and other people’s houses. He’s become a bit of a shoplifter, so when we do venture into a store with him we have to be on guard constantly. That’s why I suggest that we go to the Dollar Store. It’s one of the safest places to take him. He can choose anything he wants and it only cost a buck. “Dollar Store?” he echoes back, like a wizened owl. “We can buy candy there.” I explain. That registers. His sweet tooth is always an active presence, a promise to satisfy it a great motivator. I also have an ulterior motive: it’s Valentine’s Day and this will give him an opportunity to pick out a card for my Mom along with some snacks.
After having spent a good two hours at the restaurant (it takes my Dad a long time to eat these days – even with us cutting up his food for him), we make our way to my car. The snow banks are quite high and there is no way for me to safely guide my Dad to the passenger side of the vehicle, so I place him in the backseat. “You can pretend you’re taking a Taxi.” No response. He dutifully sits where I tell him. On the way to the store I talk to him over my shoulder. He wants to know where we’re going. He is also worried about where “Mom” is. I do my best to ease his mind. These are questions and answers that will be repeated many times during the few hours.
We arrive at that store and the little kid in my Dad kicks in. This is reminiscent of the first time I noticed that there was something ‘wrong’ with my Dad. We were at a Walgreens. It was during the horrible winter of 1996 – my first since returning to Minnesota from California. That winter, trips to Walgreens became something I did with my parents. As we waited for prescriptions to be filled, we would each take a flyer from the front of the store and search the store’s aisles for coupon items. I remember that my Dad had this weird, uncharacteristic excitement in his voice as we shopped and that he kept moving along aside me, standing far too close for my comfort. It was like shopping with an awkward adolescent whose social skills are not fully developed. I kept looking at him with disbelief, my dismay not registering at all.
Several years later, when the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s was handed down, my mind crept back to that time, along with a litany of other odd occurrences: minor car accidents, an inability to follow even a short list of spoken directions, etc., and it began to make sense Though a whole year would pass before I began to accept the diagnosis as correct and know that my Dad wasn’t just pulling the wool over our eyes. By that time his behavior had simply become too inexplicable for it to be anything else. For example, he would put on layers and layers and layers of clothing before going for a walk outside on the hottest days of summer. It was his version of running away from home, I guess. On time he went missing and ended up at the woman’s prison in Shakopee. A guard there was kind enough to call the police, who escorted him home. The police, having been notified earlier by my Mom, escorted him home. My Mom said that he arrived home acting as if a police escort was a totally normal occurrence, just another day in the neighborhood.
Such incidents are the reason that when the house across the street from me came up for sale in 2008 I decided it was the perfect home for my parents. It took some convincing, but finally my Mom agreed. My Dad was becoming too much for her to look after by herself. She realized she needed help. I spent the latter half of that winter and most of the spring rehabbing it with the help of others. We spent the summer emptying my parents’ house in Shakopee. Years and years of ‘collecting’ made it a pretty overwhelming task. It was a very emotional time for my Mom, having to let go of so much, but she managed admirably. The move went pretty smoothly, though for many months after my Dad would ask anyone within earshot when was it he got to go home. He would also talk about a house up north he owned and a farm he needed to get to. My parent’s did have a cabin on a lake at the time, but the farm he was speaking of was that of his childhood. It no longer existed, hadn’t for years – except in memory and in his mind.
I do my best to spend time with my parents. Yes, I have siblings, but they many live too far away to be a weekly presence in my parents’ lives. Two of my sisters manage to visit once a month and an older brother manages to so once a year. My other sister is too involved in her own trials and has no interest in being involved. She has not seen my parents for three and a half years. If she showed up today my Dad wouldn’t have any idea who she is. It’s a strange turn of events. For years and years I was the black sheep of the family; funny how things change. Now, my folks come over to my house for dinner at least once a week. When it comes time to leave, my Dad will head out my front gate looking for his car, though he hasn’t driven for years. He still doesn’t get that he lives across the street. We don’t push it, except to reassure him.
We have to watch him constantly. Shortly after moving into their new house, with its fenced in yard and locked gates, my Dad got out via the garage door. My Mom called me, frantic, as she and a friend of mine searched the neighborhood. A half hour later, my Mom received a phone call from their new next door neighbor. He had discovered my Dad sitting at his kitchen table. My Dad had walked in, hung up his cap and coat and sat down. When the neighbor asked what he was doing, my Dad just replied, “Waiting.” We’re more careful now. He has a key to the house, but that is all. He had to give up his driving privileges a few years back and he has never had keys to the garage or the locked gates. Sometimes I look across the street and catch him standing at the front gate fishing through his pockets for keys and, not finding any that fit, taking the lock and yanking on it furiously. He hates those locks.
But he loves the Dollar Store. And riding in the car – which I decide will be our next activity, after he chooses a card.
I steer him over to a rack of Valentine’s Day cards, explaining who it is he needs to get a card for. I pick up a card and he says, “Yep, that one.” Fortunately it’s a very nice card with a verse about thanking the
loved one for all the things they do for them. “Okay, let’s find some candy to go with it.” This eats up the next half hour, as the merits of various snack cakes, candies and chips are considered and debated. In the end he chooses 14 different items, though I suspect very few of them will be of interest to my Mom. We pay for our purchases and leave the store, but not before Dad begins to pick up loose price tags and other debris that litters the sales floor. He views such items as found treasures and it frequently takes a good deal to convince him otherwise. So usually we just let him put the stuff in his shirt pockets where it will reside until bedtime when my Mom undresses him and removes the items – tissues, napkins, pencils, pens, paper clips, price tags, ketchup and sugar packets and the like. I’ve told my Mom that she should start a website called “_________’s Pockets”, featuring a digital photo of the things she finds in his pockets on a nightly basis. Due to his proclivity for collecting things, I have to watch him closely when he comes to my house. I have a small collection of Buddhas and another of small glass frogs. Many times my Mom will call me once they are home to let me know that one or several of the items in these collections has made its way across the street. We also have to be careful with dog treats. Several times I’ve caught my Dad nonchalantly munching on something that wasn’t intended for human consumption. Sometimes I catch him in time, but you can’t win them all.
In the car, after we’ve paid for our stuff, I try to get my Dad to actually sign the card. Easier said then done. He still recognizes words, but he rarely makes sense of them or relates them to their meaning. Even his own name is a stranger to him now. I have to slowly spell it out, letter by letter. He still writes cursively, but none of the letters connect, each one suspended at a different angle as they float haphazardly near the bottom of the card. I write my Mom’s name at the top of the card and on the outside of the envelope and call it a day. I do this, not because I think she’ll believe for a second that he did it on his own, but because it will brighten her day just a bit. I also know that when she asks if he picked out the card himself, I will lie and say “yes”. In a way he did. And such a tiny white lie isn’t going to hurt anyone. My Mom deserves a valentine from her husband.
Having taken care of our shopping, we make our way along Wirth Parkway. Ejecting the dance music CD that has been playing in my car all week, I opt for NPR and some nice relaxing classical sounds. It’s not my Dad’s taste in music (he prefers classic country), but he doesn’t complain. It makes for a rather poignant soundtrack. It’s a beautiful, sunny day with lots of people out cross country skiing, tubing and such. I point out the people, dogs and the lakes as we move slowly along the winding road, but Dad seems interested only in his hands which lie lifelessly in his lap. For some reason this moves me; he seems so small, so shrunken in that passenger seat. All I want to do is make him feel safe. With my right hand I cover both of his in a gesture of comfort. It’s a tender moment. And not one that I think I would ever had with my Dad, if it were not for his condition; small consolation, but consolation none the less. True in more ways than one.
For now, all we can do is take things a day at a time. I try not to look too far in
to the future. Neither does my Mom. We’ve both done the research; we know what’s to come. For now, trips to the Dollar Store, rides in the car, meals out – they’re all still possible, so we take advantage of them. These small events link us back to life as it once was, before the heavy shadow of Alzheimer’s overtook the light in my father’s eyes.
He’s a good man; worked hard all his life. Provided the best he could. We will make what remains as comfortable for him for as long as we are able. I worry about my Mom: caring for one so dependent is a daunting task, but she claims she’s coping. That’s why I’m here: to offer a little relief from time to time.
After another 40 minutes have passed I steer the car toward home. “Ready to go home?” I ask. “Home?” he echoes, the word not having any connotation.
Yes, home. That safe place. Who knows? Maybe Tom and Jerry’s on.
I promised I would never leave you
