Pets

As much as my son has begged me over the years for a pet, we have none for a reason.  I tell Kaleb it’s because we’re gone from home too much and it wouldn’t be fair to the dog, cat, bird or lizard to have us away so long, but the real reason is, my heart can’t break many more times.  I had dogs and cats as my “kid substitutes” for more than twenty years before Kaleb came on the scene, and with each one’s loss it took a piece out of my heart.  I just love them too much and can’t stand it that they don’t live longer.  Losing a beloved pet hurts, deeply. 

It seems I spend the bulk of my days now just trying to keep the two people I love most in the world alive.  My 70-year-old husband has heart disease and cooking him a fat-free plant strong diet is more work than I bargained for when we began this journey, but the results are certainly worthwhile.  And then I have this 15-year-old “no fear” boy that I must constantly remind to be safe and make wise choices, since he’s all I have and if something happens to him, well, then what?  To add a pet into the mix would about do me in.  My nerves couldn’t handle the care and feeding and worry that goes along with loving.

My neighbor, Wendy, has a little pet cemetery in the back of her property where my two favorite basset hounds, Waldo and Bailey, are buried, along with my favorite cat, Stormy.  It’s a comfort to know they are nearby, but I so miss them.

After I made the horrible decision to put Waldo, the last of my pets, to sleep, after he ruptured a disc, I called a friend to share my grief.  All my friends, and especially their kids, loved Waldo.  He was a classic kind-hearted basset hound that let children fall all over him, and never once had a bad day. I unloaded on her and told her how my heart was aching.  Like a good friend, she listened to every detail and cried with me.

She called me the next day to say when she broke the news to her two girls, ages nine and six, the six-year-old asked if they could pray for Waldo, so they got down on their knees and bowed their heads.

“Dear Lord,” she began, “We pray that you receive Waldo into Doggy Heaven...”. 

Her daughter abruptly interrupted her prayer and said with excitement in her voice, “Mom, is there really a Doggy Heaven?” 

“Sure,” she said. 

“Well, where is it exactly?” 

“Well, I think it’s right up there next to regular heaven,” my friend answered.

“I know where Fish Heaven is Mom, but I’ve never heard of Doggy Heaven,” her daughter replied. 

My friend was a little curious, so she asked, “Well, where do you think Fish Heaven is?”

And her daughter’s response was, “You know, down the toilet.”

Jamaica

Sometimes, when the sun is shining and the day isn't too nippy, I lay out on our deck in my undies.  Not only do I need the vitamin D, but I need a little sunny escape from our all too frequent gray sky days.  I close my eyes, feel the warmth on my skin, and pretend I'm on a tropical beach somewhere.  I imagine the palm trees above my head, the sound of the surf, the turquoise waters lapping at my feet.  I live in this wonderful little fantasyland right in my own backyard and it doesn't cost me a thing.

Of course, sometimes, the real thing is nice, too.  Such was the case last week when I took off with my friend, Cathy, to Jamaica.  I billed it as my Mother's Day gift, since the best gift this mother could receive is a break, but it was mostly a gift of companionship to Cathy, who needed a vacation far more than I.  Her husband spent days on life support and in intensive care for months after a surgery went horribly wrong.  Now that he’s back home, she needed to get away and relax.  How could I refuse her invitation?

I'd never been to Jamaica before and I could never have imagined it to be so lovely.  We went to an all-inclusive resort called Couples Tower Isle. The pictures, even if they said a thousand words, could only go so far in describing what it's like.  The staff was the nicest I’ve ever encountered, the food five-star, the grounds immaculate, and the setting – stuff dreams are made of.  The ocean water was delightfully warm and all the amenities and free excursions put this place over the top.  It was pure heaven.

This indulgence had me working hard daily at not feeling guilty, but my dear husband sent me email reminders that I was worth it.  Such a sweet man. 

Each night, for the last few months as I’ve been making dinner but would have rather been doing something else - anything else - I've been telling myself, "This is why I'm going to Jamaica."  It's good to be rewarded for things like motherhood, domestic duties and caring for the needs of others.  Not everyone is so lucky, however, and I know it.  Some people work hard their whole lives and never get a trip like the one I just took.  This is where my internal struggles came into play - trying not to think about that or the other things I could have done with the money I spent getting there - even though it was a bargain by anyone's standards.

And now that I’m back home and facing laundry, weeding, grocery shopping, bill paying and making dinner again every night, at least I’ll have the memories.  My fantasy time on our deck will be a little richer, too.  All I have to do now is train my son and husband to bring me a cold drink and address me as “My Lady” and I’ll be right back at that resort. 

Linnea

It’s not often a person gets invited to a 100^th birthday party.  In the year 2000 my husband turned 57 and I turned 43.  Since our combined ages was 100, we threw a party, but it wasn’t quite the same as the one I attended in Minnesota last Saturday.

Linnea, the mother of my friend, Barb, turned a hundred years old April 23rd.  I met Barb in 1979 when we were both living in Oregon.  My introduction to Linnea was via the boxes of homemade Swedish cookies she sent Barb every year at Christmas.  Linnea and her husband, Rudy, wrapped each individual little morsel in plastic wrap then carefully packed them in boxes which were sent on the train out West so Barb and her friends could have a little taste of Linnea’s Swedish childhood.  Since she was no longer a Sunday School teacher or Campfire Girl leader, Linnea mothered Barb, her only child, as best she could - long distance.

Rudy died shortly after Linnea’s 80^th birthday and from what I’ve seen, she hasn’t aged a bit since.  She’s a little spitfire with a lot of life left in her.  She’s most thankful these days her eyesight is still good, her hearing is sharp, and she’s pretty mobile - just at a slightly slower speed than years past.  She spends her days cleaning house, petting the cat and participating in as many activities as she can at the retirement center were she now lives.  We’re all thankful her mental capacity hasn’t slowed down one bit.

I’ve known Linnea for only 35 years, so I couldn’t help but ask questions about the 65 years she’d lived before we met.  She talked about her childhood in Sweden and how it was her family came to move to America. Her mother moved to Minneapolis as a young woman and lived there six years before moving back to Sweden to care for a sick brother.  It was there her mother met her father and years later finally convinced him to move to Minneapolis - The Promised Land.  He was in Minnesota only two years before returning to Sweden to take care of some business on the farm and he never returned.  He tried, but U.S. immigration wouldn’t let him back in the country because he’d been out for too long, so Linnea’s parents remained separated and never saw each other again the rest of their lives.  “I don’t know how we managed without him,” she says, followed by this parenthetical comment - “I have this wonderful thing in my head where bad stuff just sort of disappears…”.

When asked about the best days of her 100 years on earth she says “they all were” but the day she got married and the day she gave birth to Barbara were extra special.  The only thing she’d do differently was to “be nicer to everybody.”  And her secret to a long life?   “Well… drink skim milk, get lots of fresh air and don’t over eat.” 

Fellowship

We’ve got a pretty good thing going the second and fourth Sunday night of every month.  There’s a small group of folks from our church that come over to our house for a little “fellowship” time.  I love them all. We have soup and we talk.  Everyone in our group, except my husband and I, have lived in the Skagit Valley longer than I’ve been alive so I have learned much about local history and some of the characters that have called this place home over the years.

We talk about our relationship with God, but we also talk about the past.  Some of their stories need to be written down. 

Pat and Richard Smith, partners in Skagit Valley’s Best Potatoes are in our group – they know everyone and everything about farming.  Gary and Nancy Hoffman from Bow are also in it and between the two of them, I’m sure they’re related to half the county.  Bev Seaman lived in La Conner for years and always brings a fresh perspective to our conversations about past events. 

They all refer to local places by the names of previous owners and to people by who is related to whom.  It’s a language all their own, and being one of the true newcomers to this valley, I’m lost in half the conversation, but try hard to keep up.

This past week I steered the conversation a bit by asking two of the guys how it felt to say goodbye to their family farms, as they have both recently left their lives out in the country and moved into town. 

Dallas Wylie, one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, recently sold the house on Fir Island he’s lived in with his wife for over 48 years.  His grandfather built it in 1934.  The street even bears the Wylie name, harkening back to the days the farm was established in 1913.  He and his wife, Darlene, spent months purging, reliving old memories, giving away treasures to their girls and grandchildren, and then moved - without as much as a second look back.  Now in their mid 70s, they are ready for a simpler life with no yard work and a house with less upkeep.

Don Summers, a gentle soul I dearly love, also recently left the property that’s been in his family since 1870 when his great grandfather, Henry Summers came from England and homesteaded a chunk of land on Pleasant Ridge, again, on a road that now bears that name.  Don worked hard for many years to keep the place in good shape for the next generation, but when none of his nieces or nephews wanted to take on the responsibility of ownership, he was left with no choice but to sell.  He’ll soon be 80.

I expected a bit of heartache or melancholy in their voices when they talked about walking away from such a legacy, but surprisingly, they both said they felt no emotional attachment to their homes whatsoever – it was time to leave.   What got them choked up, however, was talking about past kindness’ from neighbors in their times of need.  The buildings are easy to walk away from, but relationships are what impact the heart. 

Obsessions

Somewhere in all the how-to-raise-a-child literature I’ve read was the fact that some kids develop “intense passions” for things.  Their interests eventually shift, so parents need not be alarmed.  Good thing I had that warning.

When Kaleb was two he was all about Thomas the Tank Engine.  He knew the name of every character and wanted them all.  He had Thomas sheets and pajamas.  He traveled with a Thomas backpack and Thomas was one of his first computer games.  That interest lasted about two years, and then, overnight, the switch got flipped and he could have cared less about that silly little train and his talking buddies, he became obsessed with parrots.

Parrots made his heart skip a beat for about three years. Kaleb memorized the names of all the varieties and studied their habitats in the rainforest.  He even designed his own rainforest game and made beaded toys to take to a parrot shelter. 

When he heard that pop cans were made from aluminum that used bauxite harvested from the rainforests, he sat down and wrote a letter to the governor, asking her to start requiring deposits on pop cans to help preserve the rainforest.  We drove the letter down to Olympia and my sweet six-year-old boy hand delivered it to the Governor and told her of his concerns.  At that moment, I felt like these obsessions of his might actually be a good thing, so I supported them wholeheartedly.

Kaleb’s passion for parrots dropped the instant a friend gave him a robotic dog.  Next thing I know, he’s all about dogs – learning every breed, stopping to pet every one he sees and not leaving the house without a dog treat in his pocket.  His room changed from a jungle theme to a doghouse one and at eight-years-old he decided to start writing a weekly dog newspaper “for dog lovers and their dogs.”  He sold subscriptions and was very dedicated to his work.  He kept it up for over two years and raised nearly two thousand dollars in the process, all of which he donated to dog shelters.  This, too, made me proud.  I only wished he’d do something like that now that he’s in high school as it could help with scholarship and college admissions, but he’s knee deep in homework and has little time for such pursuits.

Sadly, his love of dogs waned when someone introduced him to Pokemon cards.  Really?  Learning the names of hundreds of characters and at what level they morph into something else hardly seemed like a good use of brainpower, so my support for that particular passion failed him. 

Thankfully, that obsession has now phased out, but sadly, it’s not been replaced by anything of value. He’s now discovered the BBC series, “Doctor Who.”  We can’t have a single conversation without a quote from one of those episodes being interjected.  Kaleb even refuses to eat an apple a day, for fear it will keep “The Doctor” away.  Someone please, flip this switch.