A Dog's Perspective

LAST NIGHT
Author Unknown

I stood by your bed last night, I came to have a peep.
I could see that you were crying, you found it hard to sleep.

I whined to you softly as you brushed away a tear,
"It's me, I haven't left you, I'm well, I'm fine, I'm here."

I was close to you at breakfast, I watched you pour the tea,
You were thinking of the many times, your hands reached down to me.

I was with you at the shops today, Your arms were getting sore.
I longed to take your parcels, I wish I could do more.

I was with you at my grave today, You tend it with such care.
I want to re-assure you, that I'm not lying there.

I walked with you towards the house, as you fumbled for your key.
I gently put my paw on you, I smiled and said "it's me."

You looked so very tired, and sank into a chair.
I tried so hard to let you know, that I was standing there.

It's possible for me, to be so near you everyday.
To say to you with certainty, "I never went away."

You sat there very quietly, then smiled, I think you knew...
In the stillness of that evening, I was very close to you.

The day is over... I smile and watch you yawning
and say "good-night, God bless, I'll see you in the morning."

And when the time is right for you to cross the brief divide,
I'll rush across to greet you and we'll stand, side by side.

I have so many things to show you, there is so much for you to see.
Be patient, live your journey out...then come   home   to  be with me.
 

The Wisdom of an 11yr. old

As I slowly trod through the grieving process of my loss, I continue to be taken aback at the generosity and almost visceral approach of friends and family.  Last week I received a decidedly pertinent display of
kindness and a heartfelt gesture of endearment from the doctors and staff at Colorado State University who treated Dancer during his radiation treatments there.  It was a simple children's book when a pet dies, called "Dog Heaven".  It was written and beautifully illustrated obviously for a child to garner for them an emotional outlet to understand where their beloved pet goes when it dies.  Each of the staff at written some very touching words of comfort to help me deal with my loss and their fond remembrances of Dancer during his stay at the hospital.

I have been blessed with all kinds of "earth" angels during this passage of gathering my sadness and attempting to reconstruct another focus on enjoyment of what I have, not what I've lost.  Because I've not really "lost" him. He's still "here" with me, not just in the physical form I've been used to.  Enough about physicality and spirit but to focus on the title of this post.  I've been introduced to another "earth angel", well, not actually introduced because he's been here all along.  I just didn't recognize the size of his compassion and understanding.  After all, how often do we even consider the perception and discerning mentality of an 11 yr. old?  I may have been neglectful of this by not recognizing some of the insightful presentations he has already designed on his computer.  And now, during my moments of sadness, his sensitivity has uncovered not just his intelligence but his compassion as well.  Here is an email that he sent me which again reiterates my forever aspiration that despair will subside. 


STRONG PERSON

A strong person knows how to keep their life in order. Even with tears in their eyes, they still manage to say "I'm ok" with a smile. Send this to a strong person. I just did. God is good. Change is coming. God saw your sadness and said hard times are over. If you believe in Him, send this to ten people including me. Watch what happens in thirty minutes! Be honest and send this to anyone who made you smile this year.
It may surprise you how many you get back. Thanks for making me smile.

Live, Laugh, Love





I had the where for all to venture out and do some photographing of which I've been seriously in a mental state of decline as of late.  As I've briefly mentioned the weather in St. Louis as being atmospherically preposterous-most of the time.  It's Spring here, but you wouldn't know it as we received "Christmas" in Spring this past weekend and received about 5" of wet snow.  I traipsed through the wet stuff at our Missouri Botanical Gardens and this shot gave me hope, hope that the real Spring is just around the corner.  In light of the snow, you can still visibly see the blossoms on the Tulip Trees that haven't completely fallen.

By the way, thanks Philip.

61-My Favorite Number (for now)

As my most recent posts have been somewhat somber, depressing, and well, let’s face it-grim, I thought I could really liven this one up and brood over the fact that I turned 61 today.  And before my thousands of adoring readers and followers (Paul S.) start to send me well wishes and possibly even money, please understand that I’m only accepting marriage proposals from either Jennifer Aniston, Meg Ryan, Juliette Binoche, Diane Lane, Tea Leoni, or Kate Beckinsale.  You can see that I’m attempting to broach these posts with some levity and add some lightheartedness to them.  However, at any time I could sink further into a massive depression, start taking massive doses of Cymbalta, and even worse, start telling you the plots behind front running shows such as “Keeping up with the Kardashians”, “Kim and Kourtney take on New York”, or the best yet-“Jersey Shore”; ohhhh, don’t you just love “Snooki”?

But as I said this post is meant to be more of a reflection of my 61 years as I received a discerning email the other day which gave me pause of what’s transpired in my life time.  It was entitled: “Growing Up without a Cell Phone”.  And it very well could have been entitled “Growing Up without all the Conveniences we have today”.   And while the “conveniences” listed in my initial email are way to many to mention, I’d like to muse over those communication devices and how they’ve brought many of us together, they’ve also served to alienate us.  Instead of mailing a photo of the newborn grand daughter, it’s sent via email.  And please, how many grand parents can navigate around the old Epson?  When we’re angry with the spouse, instead of talking it out, we send them a passive aggressive text message.  With Caller ID, we can pick and choose who we want to talk to rather than “face the music”.  Remember, that phone call could be the Publishers Sweepstakes telling you won the $1,000,000 for life……yeah right.  But, we can hope. 

I’m not dismissing the total technological environment for there are many benefits.  Just look at “blogging”.  These blogs reach the entire world.  I guess in my 61 yrs. I’ve overcome my shyness and would rather “face the music”.

Good night, Dancer

PASSAGES

 I, like many others share an affinity with James Taylor, his lyrics, his music, and probably his persona.  Like my attachment to John Denver, James Taylor has provided that bridge to a impassioned milieu.  That settling atmosphere that I am seeking to again ignite the exhilaration that I've known before.  Death has its own way of dulling the rapture once felt.  Little by little, the flame begins to glow and the the threat of melancholy starts to ebb.  The tide flows out, and with each new wave upon the shore, a little of that shore is washed back into the sea.   I still miss Dancer everyday.  I still like to believe he's visiting somewhere and will be home soon. I know that's not the case though and that he's running with my other furry beasts that have gone on before him.  I know we'll all get to cross the Rainbow Bridge together.

CHOICES

We often subject ourselves to slavery of the mind.  That cascading debacle of sadness or emotional stagnation that overwhelms us becomes toxic or sordid.  To allow oneself to procure such a proclivity is self defeating.  Thus, I find myself struggling with these very dispositions.  And yet, putting another layer or façade on my mask only heightens this weakness.  It almost becomes like the scene in COOL HAND LUKE where Luke is required to dig a ditch and once it’s dug, Boss Kean comes over and tells him to get the dirt out of his yard.  Luke, must get the dirt out of Boss Kean’s yard and back into the hole again and Boss Paul comes to tell him to get the dirt out of his hole.  It’s this very “mind game” that plays trickery with oneself to break one’s own spirit.  I refuse to be overcome by my own “mind game” of despair.

I was sent a very uplifting email today that conjures up this very aspect of productive thinking.  It reads:

John is the kind of guy you love to hate.   He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.  When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, 'If I were any better, I would be twins!' 


He was a natural motivator. 


If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. 



Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, 'I don't get it!' 



'You can't be a positive person all of the time. 
How do you do it?' 



He replied, 'Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today.  You can choose to be in a good mood or...you can choose to be in a bad mood 


I choose to be in a good mood.' 


Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or..I can choose to learn from it.  I choose to learn from it. 



Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or...I can point out the positive side of life.  I choose the positive side of life. 


'Yeah, right, it's not that easy,' I protested. 


'Yes, it is,' he said.  'Life is all about choices.  When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice.  You choose how you react to situations.  You choose how people affect your mood. 


You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.  The bottom line:  It's your choice how you live your life.' 


I reflected on what he said.  Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business.  We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. 


Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. 



After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. 



I saw him about six months after the accident. 


When I asked him how he was, he replied, 'If I were any better, I'd be twins...Wanna see my scars?' 



I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. 



'The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,' he replied.  'Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices:  I could choose to live or...I could choose to die.  I chose to live.' 


'Weren't you scared?  Did you lose consciousness?'  I asked. 


He continued, '...the paramedics were great. 



They kept telling me I was going to be fine.  But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared.  In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'.  I knew I needed to take action.' 



'What did you do?' I asked. 


'Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,' said John.  'She asked if I was allergic to anything 'Yes, I replied.'  The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply.  I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Gravity'' 



Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live.  Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.' 


He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude....I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. 


Attitude, after all, is everything. 


Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.'  Matthew 6:34. 



After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. 




Looking Beyond the Rainbow

For although we may not be together in the way we used to be,

We are still connected by a cord no eye can see,

So whenever you need to find me, we’re never far apart

If you look beyond the Rainbow and listen with your heart. 

SUNSHINE ALWAYS MAKE ME SMILE

I have admitted in several posts over the last few years that I unabashedly and most refreshingly have been a dedicated fan of John Denver for many years and still am to this day.   I can't count the number of times I've been to Colorado and enjoyed the perils of skiing the moguls in Aspen, white water rafting, backing over Buckskin Pass from the Maroon Bells to Snowmass Lake, or laying my motorcycle on its side skirting the twistys on the Million Dollar Highway.  These are shining moments of celebration and I always carried a John Denver cassette or CD blasting the eardrums and belting out in my off key voice one of his tunes.  I've shared these moments with some very special friends but as of late, my most prized companions were Piper, Remy, and of course-Dancer.  I could always rely on a John Denver tune to pick me up from whatever doldrums were resting on my shoulders.  It was John's way of weaving his poetry of lyrics with his perpetual "Rocky Mountain High" that would bring forth an ecstasy of peace to my squandered mind.  They were my "drugs" of choice in a world of deceit and confusion already wasted in mind altering narcotics. 

And so it is again that I've come to a place of familiarity of despair.  I need a "drug" to lift me out from my sadness to take me back to that "Rocky Mountain High", up over Buckskin Pass, and on that last run down Ruthie's Slip in Aspen where you look at the setting sun and can't tell where earth ends and heaven begins.  I long to return to the mountains for my God speaks so dearly to me.  I knew that my next trip there would most likely be without my Boy.  We will return soon, and while Dancer won't be with us, I know his spirit and his essence will be the Sunshine On My Shoulders and he will always forever make me smile.

A Celebration of Life

While I understand that to indulge myself in grief for too long of a period will only jeopardize my spirit, I fully realize that the grieving process does not have a time frame to it.  To grieve and at whose pace depends on that person.  There isn't a manual or code of reference that outlines this.
I received a very much cherished note from a long time love this evening that pointed out this very fact to me.  And while I continue on this path of sadness, she pointed out that this process is in a very unique way of honoring his life.  To "rush" this process would only lay groundwork for despair at some future juncture. So, I try to use this time and use a portion of my energy to continue to hold him close to my heart and repair those broken feelings by creating and showing very sweet and dear tokens of what a great and constant companion he was.

Christmas is and always will be my most favorite time of the year.  Here is a short video of Christmas 2009; a Christmas I most surely believed I would not have seen with him.

"Smile"

I know that somewhere there is another person who is suffering a grief greater than mine.  I know that as quotes go, "time heals all wounds" is one of everlasting permanence.  I know that when the Lord closes the door, somewhere He opens a window.  I know that in the scheme of life, the greater sorrow will only strengthen my resolve.  I know that for every tear spent, an my angel is there to dry them.  I know that as this eloquent and resolute simple song will maintain an err of joy for me.  I thank you Charlie for writing it.

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile