RESIST

Push back 

Your baser desires

Steeped in selfishness

And lack of empathy for others

Push forward

With kind words

Outwardly directed 

Wrapped in a grateful heart

RESIST all that is not life-giving 

RESIST all that is death-dealing

Know that your place in the world precludes no one.


***

Saying Goodbye to Greta

What can I say about our English Springer Spaniel, Greta?  She has been with us for 15 years and I can’t imagine a better companion.  She has beautiful soft fur and her forehead smells like grapes, I kid you not.  She has always played hard and rested easy.  We picked her from a litter of 9 puppies and she was the runt (the breeder’s name for her was “baby”).

She was our first baby, a full three years before we had our first human baby.  She loved to run and wore a dirt track in our back yard in Washington DC.  We’d take her to the park to socialize with other dogs, but she was not interested in other dogs.  Instead she would run a football field-sized loop around all the other dogs and their owners while we stood in the middle and watched her circle for the entire 30 to 45 minutes of time we were there.

She loved to snuggle and chill, but could be quickly coaxed into a more playful mode when we were in the mood for that kind of thing.  And she would never leave the yard without us.  I could let her out the front door and she would do her business and bee-bop around without wandering or running away.  When she was done and ready to come in she would stand at the door and wait patiently for us to reappear.

She was quick to train and eager to please.  For a time she would poop and pee on command.  We hired a teenager once to watch her at J’s parents home and he told the story that he let Greta out and she began running around the yard.  He told her “pee Greta” and she immediately stopped running and squatted to pee.  He was duly impressed!  And Greta loved visits to her grandparent’s house out in the country near Dayton, Ohio.  It was always the same place even though we moved her with us from DC, to Tennessee, and then to Ohio.  

These past few months and weeks have been hard.  She lost her hearing a few years ago and more recently has been losing her sight and also her mind.  She frequently wanders into corners and dead-ends in the house and does not know how to back out of them so that we have to rescue her.  B/c of pain (despite medication) and worsening coordination she must be carried off the porch into the yard and carried back in.  She falls frequently and in just the past day or two she has had less and less use of her back legs.

Tomorrow I will take her to the vet to be put to sleep.  We had her 15th birthday party on Saturday with a cake and candles.  Tonight Jennifer gave her her favorite human food, homemade chicken noodle soup.  She has been a precious member of this family and I can’t imagine we will ever find another dog as “perfect” as our beautiful girl.

Killing the Mouse

My daughter’s eyes were huge

pointing into our garage and 

claiming she saw a mouse.

We thought she’d seen one

scamper across the concrete

but there it was, sitting still,

eyes closed and not moving.

Something must be wrong as

it tolerated our movements 

getting closer and closer to it.

I put the mouse trap in front

of it and pushed it with a stick.

The mouse sniffed it a bit but

did not try and get the food.

Something was definitely wrong

with this mouse, but how were

we to get it out of the garage?

I’d seen its droppings in the 

past few days behind the freezer

like tiny bits of charcoal and ash.

My eyes swept around the garage

and fastened on my combat boots

sitting dusty and unused by the door.

I told the kids to move out of sight

while I put on the boot and tied it up.

The mouse’s back was to me as I

quietly clomped forward in my boot.

It did not seem to know I was there

even as I raised my foot over its

small furry form, lost in some reverie.

I hesitated, my son peeked around

the corner, “Go away,” I said as 

his curious smile receded out of sight.

I hesitated, hoping it would run away.

But when it did not I took a deep breath 

and brought down the boot hard.

I gave it a moment or two and it did 

not move or squirm beneath the sole.

No wonder.  Under my boot I found

intestines and little white bean-shapes 

that I am sure were its kidneys.

This was the second lethargic mouse

in our garage likely poisoned elsewhere.

But it didn’t make it any easier to know

that the mouse was surely on the way out.

Tomorrow I will have to force myself to 
take our dog of 15 years to the vet to be 
put to sleep.  She has suffered long enough.

***