Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Dog Day
It’s been a rough 12 hours or so. It was around 9 pm last night that we realized that the dog was injured, and around 11 when I set up a pallet on the floor so I could hold his paw in my hand as I tried to sleep, to comfort him; around midnight we took him to the Emergency Hospital where he got roundly sedated, and we gave him another dose at 4 am when he awoke whimpering… At 9 this morning we got him to his regular vet and I’ve just heard that radiology suggests that it’s an arthritic condition and maybe a “tweak,” but not the bone tumor that had been hypothesized. For the next week he’s got to lay low, which means lounging around the house, being catered to, and getting only three potty breaks a day - each of which involving my lifting a 100 pound bullmastiff to my chest like a hairy torpedo and carrying him, first down, and then up again, two flights of twisting terrazzo steps. He’s trying to be good when I do this, but his poor leg hurts and he doesn’t like to be manhandled under the best of circumstances. It will be a trying week, though I take solace that he will most likely come out of it okay. I’m starting to regain my equinamity about it but damn, when he snapped at my face out of sheer pain, something he’s never done in 13 years, my heart just broke. But if anything can mend it, it will be bringing him home from the vet this afternoon and hoisting him up the stairs again. He is the definitive good dog. (Stories are forthcoming.)
Since I need to be home to deal with getting him back (Kel just can’t lift him by herself), I ran in to the office to grab some paperwork that I could review at my domestic headquarters. As I got off the bus I saw something that reminded me of an article I’d just read in the local daily paper about the magazine “FOUND,” and how its founder is doing book tours. I was reminded of this because I found a small square of paper folded on the bus runways - the kind of folded scrap of paper I’ve always found irresistable. I’d seen one already this morning at my neighborhood bus stop, but it was just a shopping list and a few words in russian. But this new note I’d found, or that had found me - this one lent me a little perspective. I hereby share it with you, and maybe it will continue to do good work.
It’s a sheet of 8-1/2 x 11 notebook paper, three hole punched, wide ruled folded into 16ths. When I unfold it, I smell strong handsoap and cheap perfume. A name, Linda B*****, appears at the top right in rough quick script; the rest is written in softer, rounder handwriting, all in black ballpoint. The first line reads “Forgive,” and the rest is a list:
Not being a mother
Using drugs
Not your fault being molested
Was born with a bone disease
Not there for Mother (while being sick)
Linda, I hope you find forgiveness in your own heart, and with your family. A total stranger who stole the evidence of your pain would absolve you utterly, if he could.
