Me and the Night Visitor

It's a small thing really, no larger than a finger-tip width across and deep and as finely tined as a fairy comb might be, but oh, the weight of the meaning.

For several mornings I have scrutinized the block of soft suet in the cage feeder for these telltale marks - the gnaw-prints of flying squirrels.  Nocturnal visitors that I rarely glimpse - except for the predawn darkness of a winter's morning when I am on the deck with a cup of coffee and they are still lingering for a nibble - I still invest a great deal of my daily well-being in knowing that somewhere, "out there," they still reside in the neighboring wood and my efforts to provide a little sustenance are appreciated. And, for several long days, I had only the peck marks of woodpeckers to behold.

And so, I did what I always do when it comes to our woodland creatures - I worried and wondered if something might have happened to them.

Feeling a strong attachment to a tiny creature I rarely see, and cannot help in any other way, carries with it a great weight of responsibility.  It is a silent partnership of food provider and nightly nibbler.
Frankly, I do not need to see the squirrels themselves to be comforted or brushed with happiness each time I spy the small rake of teeth.

It is enough to know that as I sleep, they swoop down from leafed shadows, alight on the box elder tree, plant their feet for purchase, and eat.  To keep this fragile promise to a rare and small creature is a stewardship of the best kind. I have only the thin, straight press of line in a soft white block for thanks.

It is enough.

The Heart and Soul of the Matter

Emilie Dickinson said:

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

Emilie Dickinson didn't live to see this Winter.

One moment, the sun shines, the earth warms, the air broadens with scent, then BAM!, a two-fisted punch of cold and snow smacks down whatever small, perched winged thing might have fluttered in my soul. In my case, it's probably a beetle.

My heart isn't the only thing taking a beating these days.

Two days ago, a tiny, Chipping Sparrow hit our sliding glass door, then dropped like a stone onto the deck. For almost an hour, its stillness rendered it immobile - a freeze-frame bird still life.

The snow fell.
Then rain fell.
Then, wind blew.

And, like this Winter's penchant for adding insult to injury, a sharp-shinned hawk set up shop nearby.

Did the sparrow know?
Did she care?

As her feathers iced over and she huddled in the cold, what fluttered in her heart? Did she think, "Let it end here. The hawk can have me. Winter can have me."

I huddled, too, shielding my fragile flutter of hope for her. When she finally roused from her stupor and flew away, I vowed that Winter can't have me, either - not my heart and definitely not my soul.

March, Lara, May.

If ever there was a year for a change of season, it's this one. I don't mean the traditional change over from Winter into Spring, I mean a whole new kind of Spring needs to show up. Now.

"Old Man Winter," my frostbitten foot. There was nothing slow, or feeble, or gently-white-haired about the hoary-arsed monster who moved in last November. I was born and raised in Minnesota and I don't ever remember a harder, harsher, longer, bleaker winter than the one still hanging around as if he owns the place. We're under siege, and let's face it folks - he's not moving out anytime soon.

Don't look to March to save us. Today is already the 16th and March is neither a lion nor a lamb, but a lily-livered chicken S#%& who rolled over for Winter and let him have his way with him.

It's time to stand up and face forward.

If we have any hope of kicking that hoary arse to the curb, then April can't afford to pussy-foot onto the stage.  We need a Lara Tomb Raider kind of Month, a Month that comes out blazing and takes no prisoners.  I want April to locate, appropriate and strap on every flame-throwing, torch-launching, scorch-spitting weapon in the weather arsenal.  I want to wake up one morning in the next few weeks and have Winter obliterated, annihilated and gone - Gone, Baby, Gone.

So I'm putting the Pagan Gods of Spring on notice.  Find April. Wake her up. Take her by the shoulders and rattle her teeth. Do whatever you need to do, but make sure she knows the traditional white gloves are off and it's no time to play the lady.  Take her to the armory and have her start target practice.

Tell her when we see her, she better be packing heat.

Curve Balls, Dog Bladders and Time Warps - Part III (Being the Last Part)

I've been thinking a lot about miracles since we had to say good-bye to our dear, sweet, boy, O. Henry.  In the week-that-was-a year leading up to the moment of farewell last Friday, the word "miracle" was often used between myself and family and friends - Miracle with a capital "M."

"Praying for a Miracle."
"I believe in Miracles."
"Miracles can happen."
"You never know, you could get a Miracle ..."

By which, of course, we meant that Henry would start to show signs of healing and improvement in his neurological function and the possibility to reuse his back legs again. We didn't get our Miracle, but I wonder, on this early Monday morning with just two days between us and our loss, if we short-change the concept with our narrow, specific definitions.

Certainly, there are less painful and acute ways to lose a beloved companion than what we experienced, but there are worse ways as well. As hard, as challenging, as exhausting as those seven days and nights were, we still had Seven Whole Days to demonstrate the depth of our love, the scope of our commitment and the lengths to which we would go to give O. Henry every chance to prevail.

Then, on Friday morning, when the veterinary surgeon at the University of Minnesota confirmed our worst fears, all doubts about the decision to be made were erased. We would never have to look back upon this moment and wonder if we did the right thing.

We got the gift of being able to bring Henry back home. We got the gift of knowing when we would say "good-bye."

And, knowing these were our last hours with O. Henry, my husband and I created, "The Best Dog Day Ever."  There were two, count 'em, TWO Kong Toys smeared with peanut-butter to excavate and savor.   We lifted him, dog bed and all, up into the bay window so he could look out over the yard and into the park beyond the fence. A nearby window was cracked open so tantalizing whispers of scented spring might reach him and spell out the promise of better days ahead - even if it was a promise we could not keep.

One of us was by his side at all times, petting, stroking, rubbing the insides of the world's softest ears. I'm sure if Henry could have described that time, he would have said, "Today must be my birthday."

The last thing he saw was our faces.
The last thing he heard was, "Good boy."

So, maybe not every miracle comes wrapped in fancy ribbons, big bows and undeniable fanfare. Maybe some miracles are just simple gifts.

Curve Balls, Dog Bladders and Time Warps - Part Two

Less than a week ago, if you had asked me,"Which of the following three super powers would you pick: Flying, Invisibility, or Reading Minds?" I would have selected the ability to soar above the ground, hands down.  That was last week, though, before we entered into our crisis with Henry.

As the saying goes, "That was then, this is now."

Now, is this morning when I'd happily don the appropriate leotards and tights to turn into, "Bladder Expresso Babe!"

Able to empty dog bladders with a single press!
Unerring accuracy in locating small bladders in large dogs!
Never misses, never fails and executes the maneuver with lightning speed!

Poor Henry.

Kent is back at work so Henry's got me to help him do what used to come naturally.
There is nothing natural about the current, required contortions he's subjected to, but he is a gentle, compliant soul and endures each graceless attempt with long-suffering patience.

This is our fifth day of having him home and a lot of the early panic and raw worry has subsided.
I am even mindful of the "whole" of his care and try to remember to sit with him for moments when I just pet him and scratch his ears - no parts checking or wiping required.  I also make it a point to give him small pieces of string cheese that are just that - string cheese: not a Trojan Horse vehicle for pills.

Some laughter is back as well, as we work to ensure that he hears more joy than grief in our voices.  When we drag him across the floor on his dog bed to a new spot for viewing the back yard or for sleeping next to our bed, we treat it like an amusement park ride.  "Hang on, Henry.  Here we go."

Caring for his new handicap is not as onerous as it would be if he were a child of course. He is, after all, just a dog - except that he isn't, at least not to us. Since we are childless and cuckoo for canines and cats, our other dog, Oliver, and our cat, Libby, are our dearies. Some people get that. Others don't. Never the twain shall meet, or so it goes.

And, when Henry "goes" now, it's with our help and our best attempts to offer aid.

I can't swoop in to offer him super powers but I've got a Fierce-Field of love to surround him.

Curve Balls, Dog Bladders and Time Warps - Part One

I never expected my sophomore post to focus on our dog O. Henry and our new acquaintance with all things related to canine bladder infections. (How I wish this was our biggest hurdle right now.) But life is unpredictable and life with pets brings its own unique set of wild cards.

Last Friday morning, after observing some changes in Henry's mobility over the course of 48 hours, we awoke to discover his hind end was virtually paralyzed. The compression of what happened between then and now - a mere 72 hours - included a visit to our vet, a referral to the University of Minnesota Emergency Veterinary Clinic, x-rays, an MRI, a spinal tap and finally after a year on Friday, bringing him back home again.

We've been told he has an inoperable lesion inside his spinal cord - something the radiologist had never seen before in his 30 years of reading films.  Talk about a curve ball. Only our curve ball is attached to three different medications and a vague lesson on how to manually "help" O. Henry void his bladder until he regains function in his hind quarters - although that question is still a big, black hole of unknowing.

We were told to keep our 6 year-old, 63 lb. mixed breed Australian Shepherd/Collie on complete bed rest for a week and hope that some sign of neurological function would return. (If there is life again in them-there-legs, then it's on to physical therapy sessions and a healing time frame of about 2 months, give or take a lifetime.) We were warned that the risk of a bladder infection was high, and we didn't catch a break on that front either.

But, I digress. P.T. is the future. Rest and bladder management is the present.

For anyone unfamiliar with how a human being can help a large dog pee, there are several videos posted on YouTube. (You knew there were, didn't you?) Our system involves me holding up Henry's rear end while he braces himself on his working front legs.  My husband stands at Henry's head, facing me, bends over and presses the flat of his fingers along Henry's ribs until he's about half-way to the business end of Henry's tail.  Then, because Henry has a large abdomen, it's a sad, comic game of me doubling over to watch Henry's penis while Kent blindly hunts around by feel as best he can while applying pressure on both sides. When I finally, see the urine stream, I shout, "That's it! You're on the right spot."

So far we've had moderate success and a few head clunks.

It's amazing though, how quickly one adapts to a new normal. Our first night home with Henry we barely managed to sleep, so tense were we in needing and wanting to listen to his movements. Now, three nights into the ordeal, we still sleep in fits, but deeper sleep is achieved between the sessions of tending to him.  The first 24 hours it was hard to leave his side for fear he might struggle off his dog bed or hurt himself somehow.  Now, as I write this, Kent is downstairs comforting our other dog, Oliver, who's understandably confused and distressed by this circus, and I am in the dining room, while Henry sleeps on a dog bed placed between the table and the sliding screen doors.

It hasn't even been four full days yet, but each hour seems to slow down inexorably as we monitor each test of his status, "Will he eat? Will he drink? Can he poop? Do his back feet respond if we tickle them? Will we find that blasted bladder? And on and on."

For now, on this Monday just after lunch, (cold pizza from a weekend delivery by the way), we're set to be home until Friday when we take Henry back for more tests and our next set of instructions for more new "normals."

May the Bladder Force be With Us.

To be continued.