Saving Grace

The dog that saved me.

Yesterday I ran to town to run a few errands. It was snowing pretty good when I left, adding a cover to the only snow we have gotten all season. I finished up and started towards home. When I turned off the highway to head out into the country, there was a guy standing on the road watching down the bike trail. He waved me through the intersection which I thought was odd, all I had seen coming down the highway was snowmobiles. In this part of the state that is a daily and common sight not usually worthy of a manned intersection. I glanced to my right and saw what he was waiting for. A musher was coming at an easy clip, nine beautiful athletes stretched out in front of him. I pulled off the road and so did the young man coming from the other direction, we watched as they made their way through town. The depth of my feelings surprised me. I was transported back to when dogs and mushing was a big part of my life. I was that person, manning intersections, handing fresh water bottles and watching as the team pulled away. I cried the whole way home.

As my brother Steve and I drove across Texas, we talked...alot. I asked him if he thought he could name all the dogs he has had in his life. When you own a kennel of dogs, when you have raced for over 25 years, you have seen many friends come and go. We ate up the miles of Texas freeway, bringing as many of them back as we could. Not only did we try to name all of his dogs, we tried to name all of Mikes. It started us on an odessey of memories. Which ones could lead, which ones wanted to fight, which ones came from Alaska, the Minnesota kennels we knew. Stories from the days when it was all about...the dogs. Dogs I found were like people you work with. They had their personalities, their quirks, some of them came ready for the job everyday and some just wanted to hang around the water-cooler of life. I didn't know in the days when the yard was full of dog houses, dog trucks, sleds and harnesses that one day there would be a dog that would save my life.

Marty and I went a few years after the kids left home without having a dog. We had buried the last two remaining friends and I was ready I thought to be dog-free for the first time in our married lives. It didn't take long tho for the urge to have a running partner re-surface. Although Marty likes dogs and helps me care for the ones that we had, I am the "dog person". I started visiting the dog shelter looking for the one that needed me. The shelter was a 40 minute drive from my house and after the 3rd visit there, coming home empty I was starting to give up. The 4th visit, I walked through the yard, the shelter operator was with me. I looked at all the dogs I had seen the first 3 times and the ones that came since. I said "no" and started walking towards my car. Off to my left, a big white coon-hound came out of a dog-house and just stood and stared at me. I asked the operator about her and she said "you don't want her. She is the longest dog we have had at the shelter. She was adopted once and returned." They called her "Daisy", she was 8 years old. Six of those she lived at the kennel. I brought her home.

Then there is this: When Mike died, I abandoned everyone and everything. The dog Daisy, who we re-named Lady had been with us for several years. I left her. I left her in a kennel at the house we owned and relied on everyone else to go home and feed her. For three years, she had run with me everyday. I had fed her, talked to her, built the trust that she felt for the first time in her dog life. She was my friend, she trusted me. When we made the decision to move to Mike's house, Marty went home and brought Lady to me. I let her out of her kennel everyday by opening the door and walking away. I didn't talk to her, I didn't walk her. I wandered around this 80 acres and she followed right behind me. When I stopped, she ran into me. She didn't ask me for a darn thing except to just be. I read all the grief books I could get my hands on. I was convinced that one of them would tell me how to do this. What I really wanted them to tell me was how to fix this. How to bring Mike back. I tried to  put into words what I felt, what I needed, but for the deepest of grief, there are no words. The deepest of grief is a sound. A sound that Lady could hear. When the day came that I could walk no more it was Lady who held me up. I leaned over and fell into her neck. I held on to her fur with everything I was, I cried the tears of the broken, she planted her feet, starred off to the west and stood there. I soaked her fur and tried to let go of the sound that was killing me, Lady leaned into me and did her best to take the pain I couldn't carry.

This is what I know: Grief scares people. It even scares the grieving. I have a friend who is a nurse, she said when there has been an accident and death is brought to the hospital, the staff is told the families grief must be contained. I sought out help in the form of a doctor that specialized in physical, mental and spiritual health. When I told her I was broken she said "I lost a brother when I was in med school, my parents were never the same". We celebrate like crazy the beginning of life and we run like hell from death. In 2010, Lady was dying. Her hearing had failed, her eye-sight was shot. She had tumors over much of her body. She had lost most of her teeth and when the grand-kids said "she stinks", they were being kind. Everyday I prayed that when I came outside she would be dead. I put Lady in the back of my Rendevous and went to the Vet. He came out of the clinic along with the Vet tech and gave Lady the medicine that would stop her full heart. The last thing I whispered to her was "go find Mike" but the truth as I know it  is Mike came and found her. I brought Her home and Marty buried her, deep in the earth where she saved a life.

This past weekend Marty and I burned a huge brush pile on the back of the property. Last night it was still a 10 foot bed of hot coals. I am using some of Mikes clothes to make quilts for his sisters but I had two large boxes of socks, underwear and t-shirt scraps that it is time to let go of. I loaded it all and carried it to the fire. To say that it is hard to do this is an understatment.  I placed the items on the fire under a nearly full moon. Standing next to me was our current dog Molly, a 50 pound somewhat overweight Bassett Hound that I rescued from a breeding kennel in the Dakotas. I looked down and Molly was holding a pair of Mike's rolled up socks in her mouth. I popped the top on a can of High Life and Molly and I stood watch over the fire.

I have owned many dogs. I have been needed by them all. At the end of the day my life was saved by a dog that nobody wanted. I can't even tell you how grateful I am.

till next time.