the sounds of anguish

When I tell people that my profession is a birthing room nurse, the response is always something like "Oh you get to work in the happy place!" for the most part, this is true. I am honoured to be part of the most joyous days of parents lives; life changing, life memorable days. However, being the Capricorn personality that I am, I work in the area where there is no grey: I am part of the very best and the very worst parts of peoples lives. Yes, when everything goes well, it is the very best. But then, there is the very dark, very bleak part of my job: helping a woman bring into the world a baby that will never take its first breath. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it sheds a pall on the entire unit; none of us go untouched, no matter who is the actual nurse caring for the family.

I have attended over 10,000 births in my long career. As you can imagine, I have difficulty remembering a handful of them. But, I can describe in detail every stillbirth I ever delivered. At my first one, I learned why they are deemed a "stillbirth." after all, there are many more medical, more appropriate names. But like so many parts of working in childbirth, the history of the art comes into play. A birth is joyous, loud, noisy, filled with laughter, tears, and baby cries. We shout out: its a boy or its a girl. Mothers and fathers are weeping tears of joy with laughter, and I love yous. The physicians are busy telling us to do the things we have done a thousand times, but still, need to be said out loud. We are chatting about our own lives and our own family experiences and welcoming this wrinkled, red, new citizen into our world.

A stillbirth is just that: still. No one says a word, we move slowly, not quickly and silently, moving with a slow rhythm, as if trying not to alert the mother that her child is here and will not ever really be here. No orders are said because they are not needed; no chatter, no laughter, just the silent weeping of a heartbroken father, the stream of tears from our sympathetic hearts and the clicking of the hospital clock.

The one sound that breaks the stillness is spine chilling. It is the bitter wailing of a mother, that will never mother this child and a woman, who until the very moment that the baby was born without life, was so sure we were wrong and that this life she had nurtured inside her was still there. When the baby slips from her limp, and still, she knows the horrible truth. This baby will never go home, never grow live. The medical people were right all along: this baby is gone.

That wail, that cry that the mother gives is primal, something from long ago, lost from our civilized consciousness, yet still hidden deep within our soul. It is truly the sound of the heartbreaking.

We overuse that expression in our modern world "heartbroken," but until you have heard a woman's heart shattering into pieces over the loss of her baby, it is meaningless. All of the pretenses and crocodile tears of our modern society fall away amid that sound.

When I was young and starting my career, I was so naive. I did not understand why we would spend so much time and effort with parents who had lost a child rather that being with the ones whose child was being born. There is a long protocol to follow, with things that some people would consider morbid, trying to get some kind of memento for the parents, such as a lock of hair or foot and handprints.

It is amazing to me now that I could have ever, ever been so stupid. But I was young and extremely pragmatic, and most of all, I had not raised Connor.

Then in one of those light bulb moments that Oprah talks about, I learned something that would forever change my thinking. A perinatal bereavement instructor shared with us this thought : When you have a child, you have a lifetime of memories to look forward to, growing, first steps, first day of school, etc. when there is a stillbirth, those moments, those hours are the only memories that those parents will ever have of that child. It is not their fault that their child never took a breath and will never grow. That baby will always be their child, and as Nurses, it is our job to make sure they have as many memories as possible to take with them.

That small thought changed everything and how I now approach my care, trying to give the parents as much as we can to take with them.

The parents often want to know why? Why them? Why this baby? Only very infrequently can we tell why a baby that survived so much just to come into existence would perish so close to its birthday? If we can tell that it was something like a cord around them or a bleed, it rarely makes a difference.  No matter what the reason, their baby is still gone. Grandparents are notorious for wanting to know why. Sometimes, I believe that it is so they will have someone to blame, sometimes I think that it is just something they say because they do not know what else to say.

I have heard the heartbroken wail another time in my life. It was when the doctor told us that Connor would never walk or stand on his own. Max was devastated, and his cry was heart-wrenching. I think most people assumed it was because he was disappointed for himself; after all, he comes from a family where success is based on your physical ability. It wasn't that. He was mourning the loss of the son we thought we had while trying to process the son we now had; and Max being Max, was feeling "bad" for all the things that Connor would be missing out on, never imagining what this new road would bring us too. And as with the stillbirth family, everyone wanted to know why? What caused this? Why Connor.

Elsie (my mother) was particularly relentless in her pursuit in trying to find an answer to the why? Part of me thinks it because she wanted to blame me--after all, I was the last one who was there!--part of me thinks she was planning on using my physician, something Max and I dismissed very early on.

I can tell you that knowing why never solves the problem and sometimes introduces a whole other set of problems into your life. The peace that I finally got on the why me question came from a colleague who had a child with a severe genetic disorder; she passed away at age three. I finally got up the nerve one night shift to ask her a question that had been burning in my mind, "Rita, did you ever ask, Why me God" her answer was simple and blissful, "No, Linda, I didn't, I just figured, Why not me? What makes me so special?" there it was--Why not us? We were loving, caring, and Connor was our son. Looking back, we were the perfect choice of whatever power decides these things-- fate, Karma, God, the universe--after all, we had been together for many years, I was a nurse with pediatric background and training and Max was a weightlifter with a soft heart. Why not us? And truly would know why Connor was the way he was, why he had cerebral palsy changed anything? There is no cure; there are all the same treatments regardless of why the cerebral palsy occurred, and sitting around knowing could lead to bitterness and stagnation. The last thing Connor needed to succeed in the world was a set of bitter and stagnant parents. And as light bulb moments happen, I know now that it was meant to be. Things do happen for a reason; they are not always happy reasons but for reasons nonetheless. If we hadn't been Connors parents, who know what life we would have had. If we hadn't raised him there would be wonderful people missing from our lives; I am not even sure we would still be together as it would have been easy to quit our marriage if not for the shared care of our wonderful sons. And I am very happy that it turned out this way. As I told my sister in law this week, I would not change a thing, and I would not have missed it for the world.

I know that in the moments of grief and heart-wrenching pain, it is so hard to think past it, but things do happen for a reason, and there are no mistakes. For the mothers who lost babies, they will never take a single breath their next child takes for granted, they will never push away from a hug, or not stop what they are doing to listen to their toddler babble or their teenager rant. Sometimes, that reason has to be enough.

The secret Language of marriage

This October, Max and I will have been married 30years. we have been together 36 having dated 4years and being engaged 2 before we finally got hitched! there are several distinct traits of being together over 3 decades, as any long term couple will tell you. I think that one of the most interesting in our lives together is our common language. I don't mean that we both are English speaking in public and then speak french when alone.  the language that I am talking about can best bee described as I speak fluent max and he speaks fluent Linda. It is for this reason that we are not allowed to be on the same trivial pursuit team because we will invariably "smoke" the competition. (it is also because we seem to know a ridiculous amount of trivial information; but that is for another blog) this language phenomenon was brilliantly portrayed in the movie Four Christmases. The yuppie childless couple brought the game "Taboo" to the family Christmas to break up the tension of the divorced families. They were quite confident that they could communicate with each other much more effectively than the husbands "redneck" brother and sister in law. this dynamic was particularly familiar to me. each year we lived through 4 christmas', and I suppose since we all wore jean overalls one year, we could be considered the rednecks. I have even had a relative who was now divorced that she would not want a marriage like ours--even though we have happily been together over 30 years, have 2 children who have completed higher education, never had a pregnancy arrest or drug scare-- because it seemed that we did not talk pleasantly enough to each other. but I digress.
In the movie the yuppie couple of Reece Witherspoon and Vince Vaugan perform abysmally in the game, barely getting a point. The brother and sister in law rocked it! One word or a weird analogy would get the answer in seconds flat. they absolutely decimated the competition. Poor Vince looked like someone had killed his puppy. But I could have warned him; they had their own language: words, stories and phrases brought about from common struggles, triumphs and experiences. It is so powerful that sometimes you don't even have to talk; frequently, you don't have to finish a sentence and sometimes you are even thinking the same thing at the same time.
I think, in our case, sharing the experience of raising a child as special as Connor, amplifies this understanding of each other. there are times when dealing with the intricacies of our lives that there was, quite simply, no time for words. There were other times when, if we had spoken out loud, at the least we would have been questioned and at the greatest we would have been mocked or judged.
Still all in all I count it as one of my blessings of being together so long. Now I can translate for others that when Max says "chubby British singer" he means Phil Collins, or when I say the froggy song from Bugs, he can explain that I mean "Hello, My Baby" or that best of all we can both giggle the cares away simply by saying "Its no big deal".  to others, we may sound like characters from the movie or a star trek episode but to each other, it is our language of love, patience,  understanding and knowing that has taken 36 years to perfect. Just a word of warning though, don't ever play Taboo with us either! unless you want to be smoked as well.

Fibromylagia--the hits just keep on coming!!!

For almost 3 months, until now, I have not been myself. sore all over, every fibre hurting, tired, grumpy and unhappy; essentially, unbearable to be around, even more than usual!
after trying all health and natural remedies that I could, I sought out medical treatment. Within 5  minutes, my MD diagnosed me with fibromylagia--an over diagnosed, much maligned and misunderstood disorder. Since I was content that  I wasn't severely depressed or worse having a mental breakdown, or turning into my mother. I was elated to accept any and all diagnosis' and treatments. after all, I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. My family's reaction was as expected: Max was relieved that it wasn't his fault and there was a treatment (although, per usual, his anti-depressant scepticism kicked in) and Jarrett and Connor had identical responses, "there is no such thing as Fibromylagia; it is a made up disease." I was not surprise by their statements, as I had said as much verbalised the very thoughts years before!
So to the sceptics, I refute: live and learn and don't knock it unless you have been there. If it is a "fake" disorder, then whatever was eating my body and soul up from the inside out, is healed  by the same treatments. Within days, I was feeling better and now 5 weeks later, I am back to my normal, which as anyone who truly knows me is a pale imitation of anyone else's "normal"! But I am virtually pain free or as out of shape 53year old woman with osteoarthritis and various other ailments can be.
many people claim to have a high pain tolerance; indeed, it  is a source of frequent, ironic amusement in my workplace when a woman who has never had a menstrual cramp thinks she can handle natural labour because she has a "high pain tolerance" only to cave at 2cm dilation because she cannot believe how much it hurts.
But pain has been a large part of my life for most of my time on this earth: both emotional and physical. Several joint dislocations, fractures, ligament tears, major surgeries, deaths and divorces did not hold me back or rob me of my will to do the things I truly love; this did. This insidious, creeping physical and emotional pain stole all my desire for anything i derived pleasure from: music, camping, writing, even time with family and friends all fell by the wayside as I struggled to find a way to dissolve the constant driving ache that had become my body. (although Candy Crush saga and I have become best buds!)
But now, I am grateful rather than sore. I am grateful that I did not still have any narcotic prescriptions at hand because I am certain that I would be an addict by now. I am grateful that my physician has vast experience in diagnosing and treating chronic pain disorders, so instead of immediately defaulting to a mood changing, mind numbing opiate, he prescribed the proper chemical balance that my body was lacking and apparently craving for.  I am grateful for my delightful sons who always keep me real--even if they think its imaginary illness--are willing to support any journey I choose to partake in. I am grateful for my long suffering and ever forbearing best friend and husband, who even when I am at my very worst, tells me "You are doing great; way better than any one else in your situation." and says it with such conviction that I actually believe him. But most of all, I am grateful to finally feel myself again; and though many have probably never even noticed she was gone these last few months, watch out world because the bitch is back! ;)
http://www.arthritis.ca/page.aspx?pid=928

What about the kids???

The following is another essay that I composed for an English class  I took in 2006. I am sure that this view is as unpopular today as it was then. My sister in law asked me, when I was writing this, how could these statistics be right, yet not be well known. My response then is the same as it is now too: would you want to tell 50% of the population that their so-called no fault divorces, had these kind of consequences? I have seen nothing in the last 8 years to dissuade me from the stance I took in this essay. in fact, I am more convinced than ever that the propensity toward disposable marriage, is the number one threat to our society and our children's mental and physical well being today. Its damage is visible to me everyday in my workplace with either my clients or my co-workers. You may be asking yourself, "why would she care; her marriage is intact" well partly, because I fought so hard to keep my marriage intact, I know how easy the divorce out seemed. the pressures on the marriage of parents with a child with special needs are indescribable! there is a 70-75% divorce rate amongst our population and we saw it with our own eyes. few of the marriages of couples we began our journey with remain intact. the carnage brought about by the dissolution of those marriages is devastating. Imagine, if you will, trying to arrange custody, support and visitation with the added stressor of a wheelchair, commode and even an ventilator. one couple I knew, divorced but stayed in the same house because neither of them could care for the child alone.  How is that better than just being married????
If you disagree, please keep an open mind (or stop reading now!) I know that being in a marriage is difficult and that ending that discomfort often seems like an easy way out. Additionally, i have frequently added the disclaimer that someone (man or woman) should never stay in a physically abusive relationship. however, how many of our marriages end today from neglect, misunderstanding and starvation, and how many of them have small children who's only desire is to be with their parents? This was a research essay, so unlike other blogs I have written, any statistics shown were well documented and researched.

What about the Kids?
 A great hoax is being perpetrated on our society. the hoax is that despite the vast amount of evidence to the contrary, children of  divorce are better off than children living in a home with unhappy parents.The myth that children have little, or no ill effects from the breakdown of their family, is touted vehemently by parents with culpable consciences. However, the swindle has little or no basis in fact. No matter how much we want to believe it, children of divorce are not better off than their intact marriage counterparts.
The need for this deception began in the 1960's. At that time, the divorce rate was 2.6%. With the enactment of "no-fault" divorce, increased financial independence for women, decreased religious influence and a greater social acceptance of divorce, the rate has climbed to an all time high of 40-50%. with this number of broken homes, there is even more need for parents to believe that their children will be better off after the divorce. Unfortunately, this conviciton is simply not true.
Studies that began in the 1950's, demonstrated that children of divorce fared better than children of conflicted but intact marriages. As time went on, researchers realised that this conclusion was flawed. the results of a long range study, in 1989, indicated that the negative impact of divorce was far greater than anyone had ever thought possible. By this time, several investigators argued, "divorce was a major trauma that affected children, often very negatively and sometimes for the rest of their lives.
Divorce is one of the greatest obstacles facing children today. Compared to children who's marriages are intact, they have higher incidences of sexually acting out, substance abuse, conduct disorders, problems with school and delinquent behaviours. Children of divorce carry with them the pain of divorce for many years and often into adulthood. Children of divorce are more likely to marry early and divorce than children from intact families. They are more likely to have children out of wedlock and to use drugs. Children of post-divorce families have learning difficulties, suffer more problems with their peers and act out more against their parents and teachers than children from intact families. Kids from divorce may even show depressive symptoms such as, anxiety, anger, acting out, falling school grades, a drop in self-esteem and a loss of self-confidence.
Yet, with all this overwhelming evidence, couples are disposing of marriages and families at an alarming rate. they spout the rhetoric that "children must be happier now that their parents are happier." It must be better for the child to be raised by divorced parents, who are now more content than in an unhappy home. As much as we would like to believe that this is true, it just is not so. Most adults who feel trapped in an unhappy marriage would be surprised to find that their children are relatively content. The kids do not care if mommy and daddy sleep together as long as they are together. Children view their parents as a single entity and as such are confused by the tearing apart of their family.
Consider that 80% of marriage break ups occur by the ninth year of marriage. In view of this, the majority of children suffering through divorce have not reached an age where they can intellectually comprehend the reasons for their parents breaking up the family. Splitting a family, to solve family problems, makes no sense to the children. Children do not think of divorce as a remedy; it is the root cause of the trouble, not the answer. Even with older children, who can intellectually understand the reasons for separation, there may be a sense of personal rejection.
few partners plan their divorce. Most divorces are the result of conflict or crisis and there is rarely calm or thought our preparation as to how the couple with interact with each other in a post-divorce relationship. 25% of divorce couples remain intensely conflicted after their separation. these so-called "divorces from hell" are the ones that cause the most damage to the children. Research shows that it is not the divorce in these cases, but the fighting afterwards that is the most troublesome to the children. the feeling of being caught in the middle between the two most important people in your life is a heavy burden for a child and causes the greatest stress for the youngster. The degree to which the children are exposed to this conflict after the divorce will have substantial effect on the child's emotional well being. Indeed, this exposure to conflict, is the single most damaging consequence of divorce.
the effects of divorce on children are so severe that research has revealed that children that lose a parent through death show a better adjustment than that of a child of divorce. When a child loses a parent through death, they are able to grieve openly with the support of the surviving parent. They can speak candidly of the departed parent and cherish their memory. When speaking of the other parent there are no guilty feelings put upon them, only compassion. These children are sad, but not conflicted. Conversely, enduring the anger that parents feel toward each other in a divorce can go on for years. In one study, one third of the couples were fighting at the same intensity 10 years after the initial separation. This perpetual anger toward the other parent, makes it impossible for the child to share their feelings and receive the support they require from their caregivers.
The ease of ending a marriage has certainly had its merits in the adult world. No longer can women be held hostage in an emotionally or physically abusive relationship. The simplicity of ending a marriage has also led to the highest divorce rate ever. No longer to people seem willing to work out their problems or stay together for the kids or as Dr. Mcgraw stated "earn your way out." the myth that children always

 benefit from a divorce, where the parents are happier, continues to exert a subtle and seductive influence on how we think about divorce and how we react to it. The "me" generation, has created absolution for their conscience by continuing to expound the swindle: that children of divorce are better off. Perhaps the parents are better off in the dissolution of a marriage, but what about the kids?

It's Still a BIG deal

I have noticed that when you have any chronic situation or condition a schism in perception occurs. to the person experience the crisis, whether it be a death, chronic pain or health struggles or a disability, the problems are omnipresent and never ending. Those looking from the outside in are initially very supportive, empathetic and understanding; however, they soon lose patience with the ongoing litany of complaints, distress and fatigue of the person who is still enmeshed in the crisis.
those of us who have struggled with anything chronic will tell you that for us, it is always there, always on our minds and eating at our bodies and never gives us a break. yet, for others looking from the outside in, there is a perception of "out of sight; out of mind." Many friendships have been ended with this dichotomy and many family units strained. People become tired of hearing how much it hurts, how tired you are, how difficult your life has become and the pervasive trend in feeling is that you should "just get over it!"

While I have experienced both sides of the coin, the greatest eye opener of this phenomenon came when Connor was still quite young.
As you can imagine, and as I have frequently described, raising a child with a disability is consuming. it literally eats up all of your life: your energy, your strength and your time. you must be ever vigilant to protect yourself, you other children, your spouse and your family from the ravages that it reeks upon the family unit and the parents life. You learn early in your child's life who is real, who will support you and who will make life worse. Most of the time, we would pick and choose which events were worth attending and make the powerful effort and sacrifice that it took to partake in them. Few people realised how much military precision planning would go into a simple outing with Connor. when he was small, the issues were small; but as he grew, so did the difficulties in attending functions, family vacations and other events.
As I have also mentioned, I believe that open honest communication is a great lie and only ever works on the people who have taken and embraced the course. My experience with the "get over mentality" is a good example of why I began to think that.
When the challenges of attending family events became too great for me, mentally, physically and psychologically, I frequently tried to express it to friends and family. Some were great; others were absolutely appalling. I believe that this is something that I am not alone in either. I have had many friends and family with  various ailments and all have been met with the same push back resistance. it is as if you are allowed a specific time frame for struggling and mourning any problem that you have and then move back into step with the rest of the human race. the difficulty with this logic is thus: the problem, whatever it is, still exists and has not moved on from the persons life and there are some things that never will; CP is one of them.
One particular incident stands out in my recollection of Connors upbringing. In fact, it became the catch phrase of our family life whenever things had gotten so difficult that one of us felt close to breaking down and throwing in the towel, the sheer ludicrously of this event would bring a smile to us and giggle our way through.
It was, of course, a Christmas dinner with one of our families. Christmas at its best is stressful. 4 Christmas'  because both of your parents are divorced and not one will get their acts together enough to share is depressing. 4 Christmas' in 60 hours in a city 45minutes to one hour away, while working shift work is exhausting. Participating in all 4 of those Christmas' with a child in an electric wheelchair is nearly impossible, especially when one of the events involves an outdoor hockey tournament on a pond. Apparently, no one was aware that there were no ice skates invented for wheelchairs yet. (would not have mattered if there were since Connor cannot hold a stick either).
Feeling quite at the end of my rope that year, I tried to explain to Max's then pseudo-Stepmother, that given the conditions we were living with, it would be, quite simply too difficult to come to their house for a Christmas and I wanted to pass that year. I tried to explain, that now that my nieces and nephews were all walking and talking, doing all the "normal" things that kids do, to be around them with Connor and have the glaring differences poignantly pointed out was more than I could cope with at present.
the next 3 minutes were the most eye-opening, painful, comical and somewhat farcical of my life. Her answer to this open, honest, outpouring of my heart? "Linda, Connor is a beautiful child and all you ever talk about is that he has CP and that he is in a wheelchair. It is all that you ever say and it is really no big deal! you need to just get over it."
NO BIG DEAL!!!! JUST GET OVER IT!!!!! it is at moments like that you realise someone either gets it or they don't and all the oxygen you have ever spent talking with them has been completely wasted.
I politely said that I had to go and for the record I went to that Christmas with a smile plastered on my face and got through it. Also from that day, if ever we found life was getting to us, we would simply say "its no big deal" and giggle.  After all, if raising a child with a disability, another child, working full time nights and volunteering for other projects is not a big deal, I defy someone to find me something that was.
Perhaps, raising Connor was the only thing that I was talking about, but it was also the single most consuming aspect of our lives. EVERYTHING we did, depended on raising him so that he could be successful. we had seen the alternatives and they were not options. So we ate when he needed to eat, we slept when he slept, we arranged our outings around his bodily functions, our diet around his needs and our home was decorated in early orthopaedic. was it difficult, sure. was it tiring, you bet! was it worth it? absolutely, I would never change a minute of it. but more than anything, it was a BIG F__NING deal!!!! and it NEVER ever went away. it was never out of sight, so it was never out of mind.
It is easy to become tired with people same old complaints about their same old stories and problems. however, if you want to be a true friend, try to remember that for them, it is not an old problem; it is an ever present monkey on their backs that is new and refreshed every day with its own problems and challenges. for some, like us, it makes you a stronger, better, kinder and happier person. for others, it wears you out so much and so low that it puts you into a pit that you may never be able to crawl out of. Whatever the outcome, try to understand, that no matter times you have heard it or talked about it, or read about it, it still is and always will be, a big deal.

 http://www.dpcdsb.org/nr/rdonlyres/96281c82-4eff-4008-8ed5-b765cbfd135a/28176/2008springaccessdpnewsletter.pdf

Women: the weaker sex??? get real men!

frequently, I hear men describe themselves as "being a woman" when they think they are being weak. My husband is particularly guilty of this philosophy. this, if nothing else proves that some things cannot be beaten out of you, since, anyone who has lived with me for 30 years would be hard pressed to think of a woman as "weak." I have never been sure about where the whole philosophy came from or why women have allowed it to continue. However, I can testify that after being a Labor and Delivery nurse for 27 years I can attest to the fact that women are definitely not the weaker of the sexes.
I have seen tanks of men faint at the mere sight of a needle or smattering of blood, let alone go through 18 hours of intense pain  followed by 2 hours of attempting to push a watermelon out of your body. I often tell my patients that I did not start the job as a feminist but I sure became one somewhere along the line!
My midwife friend Anne and I agree on one point and that is "who's stupid idea was it to invite men into the delivery room!" no where is the differences between the two sexes more apparent than there. Men want to "fix things and be in control" and I can assure any of them that those things are fairly useless when having a baby. Occasionally, I have the honor of assisting a woman as my midwife friends do: a natural childbirth with no medication. it is at those moments when I remember why I became a birthing nurse and why I am 100% convinced that there is no way women are the weaker of the sexes. the concentration, power and support that is involved in going through natural childbirth is indescribable. every contraction is fought for and a test of endurance. there is no solving, only support and every one of the pains assures us of the power of the female body and the miracle that goes into bringing life into the world. while childbirth is always amazing, an unmedicated birth is truly a thing to behold. there is no force on earth like it and in the core of my being, I know that no man could ever do it.
While giving birth is a testimony to the power of women, motherhood is the true litmus test. it always amuses me that women work, shop, pay bills and care for their husbands and children; but if men are left in charge of the home they are "babysitting." Max would be the first to admit he does not multi-task and nothing needs multitasking as much as parenthood, especially parenting a child with special needs.

When I look back on our child rearing time together it astonishes me how much we got done and how much I did on so little sleep. it is a small wonder now that I love my naps so much! I think I am still catching up. Mothers are ferocious. no one who has ever seen a mother defending her child would have the audacity to describe them as weak. yet, the myth persists. if a man cries he is "being a woman" if he is hurt, he is "acting like a girl." perhaps we should just turn it around and accept the compliment! the last time that Max was foolish enough to comment that he was behaving like a female, I quipped that he should be so lucky! but  dont let them in on the secret. after all, we know that we are the stronger ones so we can give a little|!

the loss of a friend

One week from now will be the anniversary of my mothers passing. I became an orphan. Yet, today what is truly breaking my heart is the loss of my dearest, cherished friend: my beagle mango.
As I have frequently mentioned and penned, beagles and hounds are my dogs of choice; Mango was my first, at least, the first beagle that I owned as an adult. they say that you don't chose the dog, that the dog chooses you. In Mango's case, I know that this is the truth. we found her the week after my fathers memory service. she had been wandering in Scarborough, the place I was born and raised and found on the day of his service. Max had told me frequently, "any dog but a beagle." so I had never pushed it. besides our house was full with Phoebe, Amy and a guinea pig, not to mention 2 very quickly growing boys.
I can still remember the aching in my heart at that time. nothing could fill it; not max, not work, not the boys. the hole from my fathers passing was just too large.
Jarrett and I had some time to kill that Thursday night before his music lesson so we stopped in at the Petcetera to get some treats for the dogs at home and to window shop at the adoptable pets. there was a lovely mixed pup greeting us that Jarrett pointed out and my response was, "yes, but its not a beagle." I turned around, and there she was. Thin, and cheerful, wagging to greet us. Jarrett looked at me questioningly, knowing his father would never agree to a third dog, especially a full grown beagle. Still a girl could dream!
when we got home, Max was working in the garage and I told him there was a beagle for adoption at the pet store. I never once asked if I could have her since I knew what the answer would be. Something in my face must have tugged at him, and believe me, no wife ever loved a man more than i did in the next 3 minutes. He looked pensive and answered, "well, it wouldn't be the smartest thing to do, but then, we haven't always done the smartest thing." Suddenly, that hole left by my dads death was a lot smaller.
there was no looking back. I let the boys stay home from school the next day and was at the store before it opened. Mango was ours. I considered changing her name, but when Connor noted that she was even named after his favourite fruit, I knew that it was meant to be.
Her beginning was auspicious to say the least. although I had been raised with dogs and especially knew beagles, Max was not. The first thing I got her was a name tag because I knew beagles ran the first chance they got. Max took a bit longer to learn this. I think it first sunk in when he jokingly told her to get a cat that was on the other side of our yards fence. Mango promptly cleared the fence and chased the cat down the street. She could climb most of the chain link and run like the wind.
One winter, Max took her cross country skiing. he returned after 4 hours without Mango. I asked him "where is my dog?" he replied: gone. I promptly told him that he best get back out there and find her because at that moment, I liked her better than him! I don't think that he has ever forgiven me for that. Gratefully, in true beagle fashion, she had gone up to a strangers door and bedded down for the night until they could find us. She was no worse for wear, but Max was mad at her for a year!
the last year of her life was hard on her: she went blind, was anaemic and sore; yet she never once lost her cheerful disposition or complained. even the last night she was with me, she laid by my side as if comforting me instead of the other way around.
Our wonderful vet came to the house to see Mango on her way. Strange isn't it that in this ritual at least, we are kinder to animals than to humans. Dr. Michelle cried almost as much as  I did, knowing that this beagle was one in a million and would be sorely missed.
I hope she finds my dad and the bluegrass music in heaven. I hope that she finds lots of bunny trails with cottontails to chase. Most of all, I hope she knows how much I loved her and that it wasn't us that rescued her; it was the other way around. Mango, my beagle blessing, that healed my broken heart.