Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Yesterday was a tough day.

Didi continued to slide downhill. She started to get a bit better after having a really rough night. I gave her some oral penicillin and anti-toxin to kill all of her gut bacteria then started to rebuild her stomach flora with syringes of yogurt. Started her on antibiotic shots and kept up the anti-toxin shots. Then it started all over again. Last night around ten I called the Goat Yoda.

I'm frustrated and tired. Betsy brings over a sack full of additional meds to start her on and some banamine for her pain. This goat is not one of the stoic ones. If I hadn't brought her up here, she would have just gone off and died.

And, in the middle of all this, I'm still trying to get a small portion of my work done. But the goat nursing has worn me out. At one point, I go to let the cockers in after they've eaten. I'm bleary and cranky. My lupus is hurting me and my head is fuzzy.

I go out on the porch and I hear myself call it, without thinking, as I've called it so many times over the past five years. I know there isn't an answer to this question as I feel the words sounding into the twilight.

"And so, where's Aegis!" I holler.

I tear up as I gaze over to the hill where his grave is, answering myself.

I keep running into photos of him while I'm pulling stuff for websites. He's so gloriously young and alive. I just can't wrap my brain around him not being here anymore. BossyToe and Phoebe are running my ass ragged and he would have been the one who would have taken care of them. Damn that dog loved a baby goat.

He was the one dog I had that really did something to help. He took care of me. Every animal on this place relies on me to take care of them, the cockers are needy little bastards and I just miss my big yella fella.

But at least Freaky Didi is on the mend now. She was hungry this morning and ate some alfalfa. She's bright eyed and asking to leave the porch. I may stob her out in the sun for a while. She's skeletaly thin from her ordeal, but it looks like she will survive this bout.

Life goes on. I have a backlog of three days worth of farm and house work to catch up on. It's a glorious day today. The sort of day I would have packed Aegis up in the jeep to take for his first swim of the season. We would have taken the balls and the ball thrower and he would have dived into the sparkling water of the creek with more joy than a being has a right to feel. It was what we were doing exactly a year ago.

God. I just miss him so damn much.

Yesterday was market day.

Every third Wednesday I make my way into town to pay my bills and buy a few groceries, dog and goat food for the month. I do this on this day since that is when my disability check comes in and while I don't have it as hard as many, I am on a fixed income. I try to get everything paid off while the money is there.

I don't talk much about money, because I was raised that way. In fact, it was a lesson my mother actually regretted driving home so hard. The lesson that ladies simply did not concern themselves with finances and certainly didn't talk about them. I don't think I knew what each job I had paid at the time I took it until I was in my mid-twenties.

"So how much will you be making?" My mother would ask.

"I'm not sure. I didn't ask."

It just felt impossibly rude to talk about it. How could I possibly ask how much money I'd be making?

Now, I count each penny. Most of what I've made has literally gone to the dogs. And the goats. I'll eat ramen noodles all month before my animals will go without. Good thing I actually like ramen noodles.

This was a harder trip than most. Aegis' vet bill was substantial and I'd had to rework my entire budget so I could pay off that bill over the next four or five months.

We had been promised a grant from a group called Help-a-Pet. But as soon as they found out that Aegis was not going to make it, they withdrew the offer. I was too grief stricken to think about it at the time, but it was beginning to piss me off.

My mother didn't only give me a pathological avoidance of all things monetary. She was the one who gave me the gift of words. As a pudgy, pigtailed fat kid, stumbling in and out of fat camp like a crack addict in rehab, I knew very well that words could hurt. I learned from watching my mother, that words were a devastating weapon when deployed with skill.

Frances Griffeth was the undisputed champion of the nasty letter. She was a veritable sensei of the arch and cutting word. In my mother's hands, the pen was not only mightier than the sword, it was mightier than a thermonuclear warhead.

So, as I thought about it, I decided that Help-a-Pet deserved a letter. I didn't want their damn money, but I wanted them to know that I knew that what they did was wrong. So I began composing a letter. A Frances letter. A letter to shame these dreadful people.

I was having to take sleeping pills to stop composing the letter at night.

That's how a truly good nasty letter is born. You have to obsess about it. You need to let it run around your brain like a rabid raccoon, before actually writing it.

The letter gnawed at my brain stem while I went about my errands until I reached my vet's office. As I sat in the jeep in front of the office, the enormity of my loss hit me.

I'd forgotten how difficult the first visit back to the vet's after such a loss could be. I stood outside the door on their porch and looked out to the street.

I tried to compose myself. I kept doing that stupid sucking in and out of my cheeks thing that I do when I'm trying not to cry. I try not to think what I must look like, standing there...stiffly and rigidly. My fists clinching and my eyes turning bloodshot and wet. I try to stop my chin from wrinkling up like a Cabbage Patch Doll's ass. I buck it up. I walk in the clinic.

I thought I was doing okay as I put my wallet down on the counter of the window that looked into the receptionist's area.

"I'm here to put some money down on Aegis' bill." I say.

Michelle messes with the computer to bring up Aegis' screen.

I thought I was doing okay until I caught the word "deceased" in italics and parentheses next to Aegis' name. I felt my face crumple like a used tissue.

"There doesn't seem to be a balance on this account." Michelle says.

I blink hard to regain control of my facial muscles.

"There must be some mistake." I say, my voice soft and hoarse.

Michelle goes into the back and returns with Sandra, my vet. Actually, most of the clinic pokes their heads in the door.

"This was already taken care of. A man from Durham paid it."

At this point, I completely lose it. I know who did this. He only knows me sort of second hand. Aegis and I took in a cocker in Charleston named Zachary. We took him to Kerry Bryce's Carolina Cockers in Chapin, SC. He was a quirky little tri-color with an attitude and an air of entitlement. Mr. Holley adopted Zach.

Zach went on to the bridge this past year. The Holley's were crushed. Zach, like Aegis, wasn't really all that old.

And now, Mr. Holley done gone and paid Aegis' vet bill.

I stand there sobbing like a five year old. I'm glad there isn't anyone else in the clinic. I don't have a handkerchief and wipe my face on my sleeve.

"Hey! This is a good thing!" Sandra says.

"I...I..uh..uh...uh...know...uh...uh..He didn't have to do that!" I say, barely able to speak. I am not a person who weeps with any sort of grace or elegance. It's not pretty.

They ask how the other of my "boys" are doing. I'm so grateful that they can tell that I need to turn my mind to something else so that I can regain control. Self-control is important to me and I've completely lost it this day.

I'm almost okay again and can leave the office.

I sit in the jeep for about fifteen minutes before I feel I can drive. I'm overwhelmed by the generosity of Mr. Holley. I think of all of the wonderful gifts I've received. My mother's gift of her fearsome and lovely words. Aegis' gift of companionship and self-less devotion. My veterinarian's gift of understanding. My wonderful, supportive friends. And Mr. Holley didn't just pay Aegis' vet bill for me.

He gave me the gift of knowing that there are people out there handing out kindnesses just to do so. Just because.

How great is that?

I lost my partner today. He was five years old.

Most people know about me and the cocker spaniels. Most know about me and the goats. But not everyone knows about the quiet gentle soul who has stood beside me quietly making sure I don't fall down and do damage to myself. The one who has made it possible for me to live the solitary and ever so independent life that I lead.

I don't like to talk about it much. The world is full of people happy to tell you about their limitations, but I've always exercised something I like to call "healthy denial". By my sheer determination to completely ignore that there is something wrong with me...I feel I can surpass my limitations. Sometimes this works...sometimes it doesn't. Disability advocates would probably say I'm living in a closet. I probably am. I'm my own worst enemy in that respect. I just get tired of the fight...you know?

Ten years ago, I was fighting for my life. My lupus morphed into something truly dangerous and added a rare clotting disorder to the mix. I spent two months of 1997 in a coma with my chest cavity open to the heart, packed in gauze. It took a six month hospitalization to bring me back to life. I survived despite having only a 10 percent chance of living. I learned at this time, personally, about the terrible beauty of honorable scars. I bear them. I've known people with even more beautiful and honorable scars than mine.

It was a hard long road to get my mobility back. I was left with some residual neuropathies that impact my balance. As my lupus flares up and down, they get worse...then better. Sometimes, when they are better, I pass quite well as having nothing wrong with me.

In 2000 I began researching getting a service dog to help me. A program dog was out of the question. Aside from the long waiting list, I wasn't willing to give up my work with other dogs and many programs do not want other dogs in the home where they place a service dog. A program dog usually retires and leaves his handler. I knew I wouldn't be able to take that...I form very close attachments to my dogs.

I found a really wonderful group on the internet called OT-ADogs (Owner-trained Assistant Dogs) owned by the wonderful Dana Marshall and her partner, Gillis. I learned as much as I could from them before making the decision to get Aegis. I stayed with this group throughout Aegis' training and they were hugely helpful. I'm not sure why I left them...I think I just sank back into my comfortable state of denial again.

I puppy tested Aegis' litter when they were five weeks old. Aegis blew the other puppies completely out of the water. I was a bit conflicted since I'd always had a strong preference for black labs, but I couldn't deny this puppy's test results.

Any doubts about my choice were blown away when I picked him up three weeks later and turned to look in those amazing topaz eyes. We imprinted...hard.

About Aegis' name. A great deal of research and care went into its selection. It does not refer to any modern warfare guidance system or warship. It was chosen for its classical meaning. Particularly for its significance to the virgin warrior goddess Athena. It was her shield. Her divine protection. Very much as my Aegis was mine. His name was and is hugely significant to me. I feel naked now.

I started training Aegis as soon as I brought him home. We used clicker training, which allows you to train a dog at a much earlier stage. It was always a game to him. There are many horror stories out there about Labrador Retrievers and their terrible twos. By clicker training Aegis, we never experienced this. Aegis never chewed up a single thing. He never destroyed anything. He never failed to come when called. It can be done. Gently, effectively and without one harsh word.

He achieved his Canine Good Citizen's certificate at six months of age. We began to work in public places and I made him a "puppy vest" to work in. By eight months of age, he could walk by the meat department in the grocery store without even a glance at the steaks. He had all of his bracing commands down by the time he was ten months, though I wasn't putting much weight on his growing bones at that time. Aegis attended a voc rehab center with me and was an immediate "star". I can't tell you how proud I have always been of his noble and funny self. And he did have a quirky sense of humor.

We were training "pulling" and we were working on him pulling open the fridge door. I'd placed a "pull" on the door for that purpose. I stepped out of the house one day without him and returned to find that he had opened the fridge and had passed out "snacks" to all the cocker spaniels. He was overly pleased with himself.

We did some WET Dog training just for fun when we were still in South Carolina. Aegis excelled at this as he did everything else. People were always amazed that Aegis knew his left from his right. He picked that up when we were doing that. I'd direct him from the shore as to where objects were. He could pull me out halfway to the middle of the May river and back to shore. He could swim with you without ever letting one paw scratch you. And he was always concerned and worried when I was in the water.

I swim. It's the safest think I can do with myself and I've been a lap swimmer since I was in my twenties. Not so much anymore, since the pool is so far away. But in Bluffton, we had a great pool. Aegis would stay in a very attentive down stay for the entire time I was swimming. He would bring me my flippers and hand mitts. When I was done, he'd meet me at the side of the pool with my towel and offer his harness until I could get my balance again. And I always knew, he was just waiting for the moment he needed to jump in and save me.

How do you replace a friend like that?

All of this, he did before his first birthday.

This dog most certainly knew his job. He never lost sight of me and if I was doing something he thought was beyond my limits, he absolutely let me know about it. He hovered whenever he thought I was endangering myself. He was usually right. I can't tell you how many reproving looks I've gotten from him while I was out on the mountain or cranking up the chainsaw.

"That looks dangerous." His topaz eyes would say, "Stop it right now!"

When we moved to Tennessee, I was wanting to work again, so I stopped taking him out in public so much. Nothing says "disabled" like a great big yellow dog in a harness beside you. And don't think for a minute that the ADA has solved anything in regards to discrimination. It hasn't. No one will hire you if they think something is wrong with you. They just won't and there doesn't seem to be a damn thing you can do about it.

And Tennessee is in the middle ages as far as service dogs are concerned.

"But you ain't blind?!!"

So Aegis stayed on the farm. He helped me hang fencing. He carried tools for me. Mostly he made sure I didn't fall and helped me up when I did. He picked up after the cockers and played nursemaid to baby goats. And he let me know when I was doing something I shouldn't. Like try to shimmy down the mountain to get something that had blown off the porch.

He missed getting his vest and harness on and going out, but I myself became more insulated and didn't get out much either. So he was still with me all of the time. So that was okay.

I've often wondered if I was ever worthy of Aegis. He was that sort of dog...you just couldn't believe that he was in your life and not with someone else. Everyone wanted him. Everyone loved him. He made me feel loved by extension. He made me want to be a better person. I don't think I could ever live up to his expectations and image of me.

Aegis was the sort of soul that you are just incredibly blessed to have enter your life. Frankly, I don't think anyone could have been worthy of him. He was a once in a lifetime sort of dog.

If I seem to be nattering on aimlessly, it's because I'm numb. There is a point where grief is so profound that one's entire soul shuts down. That's where I am right now.

Today, Aegis' liver failure took a turn for the worse. He started to have seizures and his temperature spiked in the afternoon. After a consultation with my amazing veterinarian, Sandra O'Connor, we decided that he was only going to get worse and there were no other options available. It was "time".

My friend Scott was here to help take him in. Aegis couldn't walk and was fading fast by the time we arrived at Cedarwood.

I whispered his highest praise words into his ear as he left.

"Good Boy, guboy, guboy, guboy!"

I said them over and over again...way beyond the point where it was necessary.

My vet and I wept. She hugged me.

We tried. God knows we tried.

I don't know what I'm going to do now. The partnering bond between us was so strong. I can't imagine sharing that with another dog.

I think I'd rather fall. I think I'd rather bruise and bleed.

I woke this morning to find the hoarfrost laying heavily upon the pasture. The rails to my balcony were coated with tiny little prisms of ice. I went out to get the wood for the stove and my breath made clouds about my head. Winter was here.

Aegis licked my hand to get me out of bed, as has been his custom ever since he was big enough to put his paws up and reach me. He was trained to do that and has lovingly performed that task even after I no longer needed him to do so.

I pulled the hood up on my long flannel robe and took him outside. He wants to leave, I can tell. He tries to slink off but comes back when I call him. I won't let him go away in the frost.

I was encouraged that he finally wanted to drink some water. I think the lactated ringers has hydrated him enough that he can at least do that and keep some down. He lays obediently at my feet next to the couch and lets me care for him. The needle dripping life back into him, hopefully. The whites of his eyes look like lemon drops.

I want to ask him to wait for spring. I want to whisper dog language into his silky ears and tell him to wait until there is warmth and blackberries and baby wild rabbits to chase. I want him to wait until that first swim in the creek with the barefooted boys of summer.

"Wait," I say..."For God's sake don't leave me here in the cold."

I want to tell him to wait until the baby goats are here. Aegis loves baby goats. But I don't know if I have any right to do that. Because I know he would unquestioningly follow my orders. Out of love...blind love.

I know that God has a sense of humor. But this...this...is in poor taste.

I wanted to get this post in before midnight, but looks like I'm too late.

Friend Scott comes over to eat New Year's Day evening meal with me. His mission was to find the collard greens and some sort of smoked pig product. I was okay with just raiding the bounty in my freezer from this past summer's garden, but Friend Scott really feels the collards are necessary.

Okay, fine.

So Friend Scott calls after venturing into Newport to get collards.

"I'm back and I got four cans of collards and some streak o' lean." He says.

I don't speak for a moment. I could swear I just heard him say "cans".

"Cans?" I repeat stupidly into the phone.

"Yes," he says, "I've had these before and they are pretty good."

"Cans?" I repeat again stupidly. I keep pulling the phone away from my ear and looking at it like it's speaking Urdu.

As a Southerner, collards hold a fairly sacred spot in my personal food pyramid. They are sort of like grits and, you know, no self-respecting Southerner eats grits that come in those little oatmeal packages. Even "quick" grits are sort of pushing the envelope of decorum.

There are a very few situations where I think it is okay to eat canned collards. Auto-cannibalism might be one. So, if the choice is cutting off your own arm or leg to eat rather than starving to death...canned collards might be permissible. If someone else's arm or leg is handy, the rules change dramatically.

Friend Scott can smell my disapproval leaching through the phone connection.

"Look, all of the stores were clean out of fresh collards."

"Even Wal-Mart?" I growl.

"And Food City and Save-More."

I'm not sure I believe him.

"Look," he says, "Fresh collards would take ages to cook."

I stop myself from saying, "That's why God invented pressure cookers. And I have one."

Luckily, Friend Scott fixed the things at his house so I didn't have to sully my stove with them. He also brought the sweet tea, so all was forgiven. The meal turned out really well despite the presence of the offending food item. Which wasn't all that bad. If you crumble up enough cornbread in something like that it hardly matters.
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Personal note. It looks like I'm about to lose my beautiful yellow Labrador, Aegis. He's only seven years old. He is extremely jaundiced and will be going into the vet in the morning. But it doesn't look good. He keeps trying to sneak away but I'll be damned if I'll let him do the stoic Labrador number and die alone out in the cold. It nearly killed me when Hi-Lite died in 2003. I wish my heart were not so tender. I wish the pieces would stop falling off of it. I don't want him to go.