For the Love of D.O. G.

My cell phone rang late the other night. Nobody calls me on my cell phone late at night or early in the morning except my daughter Betsy…and never when the news is good. In between sobs, she told me that her ten year old Black Lab was having difficulty breathing and a trip to the animal emergency clinic revealed a large tumor around his heart. The cancer was definitely in his lymph nodes as well. He was in pain and the vet’s advice was to put him down.

He spent the night at the hospital and she was to pick him up the next morning to take him to his regular vet to do what she did not think she could bear to do.

You all know Betsy as one of our Single Still Single Again columnists. Her life is rarely dull. Sometimes it seems like her best friends are named Crisis and Drama. In between those two events, however, she can keep a room alive telling her real life stories that keep us all laughing.

But all I could do was cry with her the other night. I searched for the consoling things a mother is supposed to just be wise enough to say, but I could not find any words at all. My heart so hurt for her as the invisible movie screen in my mind played flashback memories of this dog my daughter so loved.

It was in her senior year of undergraduate school at Samford that I entered her apartment and saw a huge wire kennel in the middle of her living room. I sent up an SOS prayer, “Oh, Lord, please let this dog belong to Betsy’s roommate,” but I knew better from the very beginning.

Walker had come from the Birmingham Pound and was almost small enough to sleep in one of Betsy’s shoes…when he wasn’t chewing them up, that is. He grew to be the size of a small black bear and I never understood how petite Betsy managed to “walk” him. My one attempt at walking Walker required an ambulance ride to the hospital, a cat scan, two broken front teeth, and more. It wasn’t that he was bad…he was just enthusiastic about life and completely unaware of his size or strength.

He did not like having to ride in the backseat when I visited. When Betsy was in grad school in Tuscaloosa, the entire staff at the local McDonald’s looked forward to Walker’s weekly drive-thru visit for his Happy Meal.

Betsy and Walker have been inseparable this last decade. Walker has comforted her when there was no human being in sight to comfort her. Through boyfriends, several career changes, numerous interesting roommates, several surgeries, and a close call with the MRSA staph, Walker has been there.

But Betsy has been there for Walker, too. I will never forget the time he was hit by a car and she was on 280 with Walker on the backseat, sobbing into the cell phone to me as I stood in my kitchen 250 miles away that she could not remember where the animal emergency clinic was and could I please call 911 in Birmingham and get the directions for her. It was touch and go that weekend - IV’s and internal bleeding, but I firmly believe Walker’s sheer will to be with Betsy worked in his favor. He was just not ready to think she could handle life without him.

The second vet has given him a special medicine to buy a little time although he tells Betsy it is very little time – maybe days. Walker is eating, showing some responsiveness, and even played with his Lab friends Luke and Maggie yesterday. I am amazed that Betsy can be so brave knowing the inevitable outcome. But she wants that time with her faithful friend, and I so understand.

It’s just one of life’s ironies that something that brings so much joy can bring so much pain as well – I am talking about love. It’s really very dangerous to love – to give your heart away with such abandon – whether to another person or to that pet whose love is about as pure and unconditional as any love God ever allowed us to know. I think the term “broken heart” is just the perfect description because letting someone precious go does indeed leave a heart feeling shattered into pieces.

But you know what? I would rather live dangerously and cherish the good times than to be safe and miss the joy of love given and received.

…But the greatest of these is love…I Corinthians 13:13b

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Ethel and Lucy Take a Road Trip

To all of my fellow “Fly-by-the-seat-of your-pants” buddies out there, I have an epiphany. Here goes: Being organized is way overrated.

Anybody who really knows me is now incredulous. I have written with longing about an organized life for the last seven years. No more. I am done with that dream and I am kissing the guilt good-bye.
It seemed like a great idea last April when contributing writer and close friend, Kristi Brown, suggested we sign up for the “She Speaks” conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. The conference is pricey, but we had lots of frequent flyer miles, so why not cash in and go? This was an opportunity to pitch the books we are writing to publishers, hear from some seasoned speakers and writers on the “how to’s” of our craft, and – hey – I am always up for a good girl trip.

For somebody like me who is “organizing challenged,” even my step-daughter Jill, who is the queen of organization could not have done the prep work any better. My suitcase was packed two nights ahead of time, my book proposal with first three chapters were sorted in appropriate folders, and Charles did all the cooking for at least a week so I could focus on my presentation. I even went to bed early the night before – for my brain function and because I read that wrinkles diminish when one looks rested. Whatever. It seemed to make sense at the time.

Kristi and I, with fresh manicures, pedicures, and the “right” business casual wardrobes, even booked our flights a day before the conference really started just so we could be rested, perky, and alert.
On my way to the airport, Kristi called to let me know Delta had canceled our flight and rebooked us on a flight for the NEXT DAY! We agreed that was not acceptable, so we searched about and discovered we could fly out of Columbus late that afternoon. The object was, of course, to arrive in Charlotte in time for bed.

So we were off…finally…only to land in Atlanta and find that our flight to Charlotte had already taken off, and due to weather, there would be no more flights out of Atlanta until Friday morning. I was astounded at sweet Kristi Brown’s assertiveness. I thought I might have to restrain her at one point as she explained to the ticket agent that this situation was simply unacceptable. The only result of all of our frustration was that he handed us both the “overnight emergency kit” which contained a Delta Airlines T-shirt, a toothbrush and a miniscule packet of toothpaste – and we are talking MIN-I-SCULE.


Trying to pep-talk each other and convince ourselves this was not so terrible, we rushed to the restroom to brush our teeth. There was not enough toothpaste to do more than brush our front teeth, so our other toothies just had to make the best of it.

I am a lipstick and earrings kind of girl. I don’t much like to sleep straight up in an airport vinyl chair in the clothes I have worn for 16 hours, mascara smeared like raccoon eyes, and this sensation that my teeth are covered in something slimy. At 4:30 am, we gave up on sleep, ate greasy food at the only place open at that hour and tried hard not to stare at the strange assortment of fellow stranded passengers. I was just about tired enough to have lost any semblance of good judgment, and I was considering interviewing a few folks about their tattoos and their strange choice of anatomical body piercings. But Kristi convinced me I would regret that choice later. So I did not.

On the way to our long awaited departure to Charlotte, we got a great tour of every terminal in the Atlanta airport since Delta chose to change our departure gate AND terminal about six times between 5 a.m. and 7:20 a.m.

My enormous purse that was also holding my laptop had gained about ten pounds since the day before and my cute shoes that should be against the law to wear anyway were hurting my feet so much that I had developed half-dollar sized blisters on the balls of both my feet. I asked Kristi if she would mind pushing me if I could just locate a wheel chair, but we never did.
I think I am done with travel for a while. Wonder what lesson I was supposed to learn in this adventure besides always take a tube of toothpaste in your purse and avoid the Atlanta airport at all costs.

I know well the scriptures on being thankful in all circumstances. Even though I failed miserably Thursday night, I know one more thing about myself.
I handle the significant crises of life a lot better than the minor inconveniences. I think most of us do.

God is still working on me. Maybe one day, I will get the heart, the brain, and the mouth to work in sync. They just can’t get their act together.

Puts a smile in my day

Charles, granddaughter Katie and me at the store.

My Colorado Grandchildren: Sutton (4 months), Allie (4/12), and Charlotte (17 months)