Tag Archives: Siberian Husky

Can I photograph your dog?

7 Feb

I commute 128 miles each day, Monday through Friday.  My closest friend, aka my husband Brian, is my chauffeur. The moment I step into my office my fast paced life begins, until I force myself to leave tasks undone and head out the door for home.  It is typical that I arrive home at the dinner hour.  I then catch up with our daughter, give a smidgen of affection to the dogs and march myself off to bed because I have nothing left within me which allows for further activity.  I do not mind my commute, nor do I mind my fast paced job.  In truth, I think my work environment and pace has prevented, in a true physiological form, depression.  And I thank G-d for that.

Because I move at such a quick rate I often do not have time to allow myself to dwell upon my sorrow.  Oh it’s always with me, but I don’t have much opportunity to be real with it.  But today, I drove alone.  And upon leaving work and getting on the freeway, I realized I needed gas.  My first opportunity to get gas was at the exit of the Miramar National Cemetery where my son’s remains, remain.  And my first tear fell at the beginning of the exit.  Since I had the gift of time in the moment (Brian and Esther were both at a convention in downtown Los Angeles), I went to the gravesite of Cole.  I don’t think it coincidental that I was given a bouquet of tulips today from one of the students at my work, G-d just works that way.  I had them in the car with me and decided to take them to his site.

Now it just isn’t right…a mother should not see the name of her child on a headstone.  But alas, I do.  And I arranged the flowers at the base.  I sat there and marveled at the minuscule insects that were feeding/breeding on the granite.  It seemed fitting as Cole hated bugs yet they always found in him a perfect place to land.  As I killed the odd breed, I laughed, through my tears, at the irony of their presence.  And then I returned home and avowed to allow myself time to feel.  To give in to my sorrow and once again be a woman in mourning.

Shortly after my son passed away, a dear friend of mine gave me a morsel of wisdom.  She said, “Rivka, just remember you are going to need to extend grace to people, for they often don’t say the right thing.”  I haven’t forgotten her words.  And just this week at work, I was given verbal confirmation that I am walking in that wisdom.  Someone said, “Thank you, Rivka, for your graceful manner.”  And, “Thank you for the efficient and cheerful way in which you do things.”  Now I have to tell you, those comments bring tears to my eyes because I am truly surviving on the strength and hope of our Lord G-d, Heavenly Father.  For inside of myself I am flat, depleted, and worn.  But everyday I pray to be useful and in (and of) service to G-d.  And if people are seeing cheerfulness and grace within me, it is because the Holy Spirit is hearing my cry and answering my prayers.  …I am grateful, humbled, and honored to be in His service.

And yet, this afternoon, MY afternoon…

On this day when I gave in to allowing myself a moment of grieving, I became stretched by an unknown stranger in need of the grace of that which my dear friend had counseled me.

I took the dogs on a short walk, mostly to satisfy their canine exuberance once I walked in the door.  I have little Buddy, the Chihuahua/Terrier mix and Piper, the purebred Siberian Husky–Cole’s service dog.  Now Piper is a super love.  A sweet and beautiful creature.  But she is terrified of little kids, girls especially.  Mostly because they see her and run toward her in natural excitement that translates with a high pitch squeal.  They long to take her fluffy, furry body and wrap their little arms around it.  And the closer they get, the more terrified Piper becomes (of course one should never run up to a strange dog–but little girls are often too young to have yet adopted the policy).  At any rate, as I was walking through the neighborhood behind my house, the last leg of our short jaunt, I spied a cadre of little girls running from one house to another, with a “mom chaperone” trailing behind.  Based on their enthusiasm and bags in hand, mom included, I gathered they were on some sort of a scavenger hunt.  Piper noticed them too, so I assured her it was ok and felt confident their own adventure would keep them distracted from Cole’s beauty (really I should say bitch, but it just doesn’t sound right–even in writing!).

I was almost past the little group, and mind you, I had my coat on with my hood over my head–my intent was to emanate the sentiment, “closed for the season”–when out of the mouth of the mom came a shout, “can I photograph your dog?”  Uh oh, she penetrated my world with her intrusive request.  Couldn’t she see I am in mourning?  Couldn’t she feel my closure to the world?  I was merely walking the dogs out of obligation to them, while missing my son and feeling great pain for his suffering and our loss.  Why didn’t she know?

Well how could she?  I do not have the advantage of wearing clothes of grief.  Nope, I had just my green jacket and its protective cover failed me.  But I needed this afternoon and needed it desperately.  I also needed to respect Piper’s fear of little girls and so I said, “not at this time” and I kept walking.  The mom was taken aback and quite put out by my response.  In fact, she reacted according to her position…not mine.

“Grace.  You will need to extend grace to people.”

Once I got the ugly thoughts quieted from my mind, I remembered back to Rivka the young mother.  Rivka, who could put her shoes in the place of the mom wanting a photo.  Of course from her perspective, taking a picture of a beautiful dog is not an imposing request.  For little did she know, and little would I have known if I had been her, that I had just returned from the grave of my son and my heart was(is) broken though still functioning.  So I enacted the words of counsel from my friend and I allowed the woman to think ill of me, and I chose to not think ill of her.  Truth is, I envy her.  I envy her excitement and exuberance for her children and their young stage of life.  I love her place of intent, to bring joy to her group of girls through the simple act of photography.  And I miss that place of being, though am grateful for once having had it.

There really is a great deal of hardship in this world.  AND, there really is an awful lot of goodness.  We really have a choice between bitterness and joy.  I choose the latter of the two which is why being in the service of our Lord is so important to me.  To think He can still find use of my brokenness blesses me with a peace I cannot explain.  I am sorry to the mom for whom I could not accommodate.  I am not sorry I did not stop for her to photograph a terrified dog.  And I am not sorry that I allowed myself to be true to my own emotional state.  I am just sorry that she might consider my actions unreasonable and therefore feel affronted by them.  I am much more aware that as people, we are walking this earth, many of us, with stories that effect our actions.  I am just one of them, and this is just one of my little stories.

Siberian Huskey

Piper, at your service!

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Skip To My LOO

11 Apr

If fecal matter, aka crap, shit, poo, number 2, is offensive to you, or reading about it rather, then I strongly suggest you skip this post.  Because in this one, shit is definitely hitting the fan, making this an extremely dirty, nasty post!

My last week in San Jose was so exhausting.  First the drive up on Sunday, then the arrival where I served as luggage porter to our third floor room, Siberian Husky wrangler, cook, maid, and chauffeur.  And when it came to Thursday, the day I was to fly home for the weekend, the morning set the stage for what I call, “Rivka and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.”  So much so, I couldn’t bring myself to write about the chaos and feel badly that I even shared it with a neighbor couple.  Let’s just say, it began with our hotel room toilet overflowing, middled with Piper, the dog, peeing on MY bed and my flight canceling, and ended with me stuck on an overfilled plane between two passengers who both needed one and a half seats.  It honestly took me two full days (Good Friday and even better Saturday) to recover from the exhaustion of it all–especially as I am sparing you several of the outrageous details.  In fact, at one point on that Thursday I had an “out of body experience”.  No, not the new-age type of ‘I-have-faced-myself-dead’ experiences; but the kind where I was literally in the mix of continuous, progressively building, chaotic events and wondering to myself how to abort the circumstance.  It was almost as if I was watching this fiasco, like it was a television sitcom, and desperately trying to figure out how to change the channel.

But wait, it continues to get better.  Since Piper sent me off with a yellow present, I guess she figured I needed a brown one upon my return…

At three thirty in the morning, Monday–the day of my scheduled return flight to San Jose–I heard our house phone ringing.  Mind you, I am still living on high alert, so a telephone ring at that hour, usually incites fear of impending news of death.  However, it was not the case.  It was my son, Cole, calling from the hotel room in San Jose.  Apparently Piper had a bout of diarrhea–all over the hotel room floor.  But since I was, all of 500 miles away and his Uncle was in the next room over, I suggested he wake his Uncle to help with the tragic situation.  …which he in fact did.  “Thank you a thousand times Uncle Timmy!”  But of course the paranoia of it all kept me awake just the same.

So I made it back to northern Cal and made sure to gift the laundry man and the maid something super special.  And even though our dear Tim assured us the Piper cub was probably finished with her “expelling”, Cole and I decided to have her sleep outside on our tiny, third story balcony with a half-hearted prayer she wouldn’t jump.  And if she did, Cole and I were resigned to mourning! 😉

Now last night, we figured she was for sure “finished, kaput, done” with her loose stools, thus the girl was again allowed to sleep inside.  But at 3a.m (what is it with that number?!), she was awake and pacing!  We quickly put her bed outside and I wrangled her back to the patio–a place she is not fond of!  And this morning what did I receive?  Yep, a patch-work quilt of poo.  Piles of loose, mucus filled stool.  Some areas bigger than others, with many small dots–the girl pretty much covered the area of the patio that did not house her bed!  Guess what I did this morning?  I had the high honor and privilege of collecting diarrhea via scooping with a plastic knife into a paper bowl.  And since I had taken an hour or so at breakfast to formulate my cleansing plan I was able to assess the patio and how, once the feces was collected, I would proceed with cleaning the area.  My deduction was as follows:

In the center of the patio is a drain hole, which I deduced would funnel the dirty water down a pipe and out to the ground floor.  So there I was, with a plastic bag over my hand, a brought-from-home rag (I didn’t want to again have to impose on the hotel staff!  I was afraid I’d have to also find us a new place to stay if they were brought into the our sitcom routine once more), an ice bucket filled with soapy warm water and all the scrubbing power I could muster.  Scrub, scrub, scrub and then WHOOSH…I poured the bucket of water over the area to rinse it down the drain.  Only as I was rinsing, I was hearing the sound of water dumping from below.  I looked over the balcony only to learn the drain hole empties directly onto the balcony of our second floor neighbors.  And as if that wasn’t the worst epiphany ever, the maintenance man (yes the one who had to unplug our toilet and who had to shampoo the carpet) was right outside in the parking lot to witness the occasion.  Needless to say I ducked down and hoped he would mistake the bubbles for rain!

I swear, sometimes I think our G-d in Heaven is a big television producer and he is making one heck of a killing off of my weekly episode.  Quick, somebody find the remote and change the channel!

And Cole?  He is progressing.  Though the progress is slow, there is a forward motion of improvement (otherwise we would pack up our things, end our humiliation, and head home).  We, of course, are praying for a miraculous return of his facial muscles (controlled by cranial nerve 7), but the tumor was strong on that area of the brain-stem, thus the damage it inflicted is difficult to ignore.  But we are not giving up…sorry San Jose, we will stay a while more!

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Bird Flew

2 Apr

I am currently in northern California.  San Jose to be exact.  I drove my son, Cole and his dog, Piper, up from southern Cal, yesterday.  It should have been a six hour drive, but due to an incinerated vehicle in Los Angeles and heavy traffic all the way through, we made it up here in seven and one half hours.

Let me tell you, I am tired today!

We are again up here so Cole can receive the neurological acupuncture treatments from Dr.’s Zhu and Moyee.  The plan is for treatments every day, except Sundays, for the next two weeks.  I will fly home for this upcoming weekend and fly back on Monday.  In my absence, my brother in law is taking charge.  For you new readers to this blog, my son’s face is paralyzed, his balance altered, and he lacks full ocular function.

Anyway, today I took him to his appointment at 11:30a.m.  I then took Piper to an, almost always, empty dog park.  When I reunited with Cole an hour later, he could move the upper portion of his nose…bilaterally!  It is just incredible and almost unbelievable…even when I’m first hand witness to it.  We then took a break for lunch back at our hotel room.  And while Cole finished his bento-box, Piper and I went down to the outdoor pool and jacuzzi area.  Both of which are enclosed by a gate so I was able to take her off leash while I dipped my feet in the warmth of the jacuzzi and made a few phone calls.

The reasons I am so wiped out today is one, I was up working past midnight the night before we left.  Two, I drove all the day in traffic yesterday.  Three, last night I had crashing-the-car-nightmares which kept waking me with a jolt.  Four, I had a dog on my bed the whole night.  Five, I’m wrangling our luggage, my purse, the car and hotel doors, my son, his dog, my beverage, and the hotel room/door key.  Shoot, that last one is enough to make me tired all by itself.  I’ve decided I need to hire a “Rivka Wrangler”.  Anyone looking for a job?  I pay with “please and thank you!” 🙂

Well we finished up at the clinic today at 4p.m.  Actually, Cole called it quits…his threshold had been met.  So with us both being so tired I knew I needed to let Piper have one more go round on the enclosed courtyard grass before heading up to our room (where I hoped to land for a while).  But as my life would have it, my full-proof, proactive planning, backfired.  Piper spied a cute bird couple “twitterpating”… and then all of a sudden, BAM!! …one was in her mouth.  She then paraded her kill while the other widowed avian spouse flew around quite disgruntled.

So here I was, just a few minutes ago, first day in our hotel and my son’s dog hunts, kills, parades, and then proceeds to eat one of the little birdies that lives here.  I don’t even know what to say…  After I once again wrangled Piper back onto her leash (after her first victory she was ready for round two, three, who knows probably four and five), we returned to Cole in our room and I told him what had happened.  He asked, “Did anybody see?”   “Heck if I know,” was my reply–because I nabbed Piper as fast as I could and pretty much ran back to our room.

I called Brian and told him.  I also mentioned, “I am not much for ‘animal kingdom’.  I don’t even know what or how to handle a bird eating dog!”  To which he replied, “Me neither.”

HELLO SAN JOSE; THE BENTS ARE HERE!!

p.s. Still no migraine, even with lack of sleep, a stressful drive, a son, and a bird dog!

Beauty AND the Beast!

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