Tag: age

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Holding On

Pets have a way of making the holidays unforgettable.

There was our long-ago cat Twinkle, for example, who discovered the joys of Christmas-tree tinsel. She not only lived, she shared the results in glorious Technicolor behind the television for all the family to see.

There’s our mighty Big Blake, the English Labrador who has spun entire trees like a propeller in his eagerness to charge past them and greet a guest.

And of course, any time Duchess the Wonder Dog has met a new-fallen snow, the result has been somewhere between the Dance of Joy and a high-powered Indy 500 winner.

Well, this time around, Duchess is at the center of another holiday memory – this one a little less high-adrenaline and a little more painful.

This Christmas, Duchess appears to have cancer.

We discovered it by accident. Having the genius of a border collie and the curiosity of a Lab, Duch had figured out long ago how to break into our pedal trash can.  She hadn’t been looking too well after her latest garbage raid, so we brought her into the vet to be looked at.

The tummy upset proved to be none too serious. But while looking at her gut, the doctor happened to notice some nodules in Duchess’s chest. That glance and a follow-up soon brought the M-word – metastasis.

This wasn’t necessarily the end of the road, the first vet hastened to explain. Depending on what an oncologist saw or didn’t see, it could be possible to drive things back, to beat this. Still, the shadow of the word had entered the conversation. And it’s a hard one to evict.

Cancer.

I hate the word. I hate even typing it, like pressing the keys might somehow make it more real. Cancer has already made too many marks on people I love. My Mom survived it. One of my grandmothers didn’t. Nor did Heather’s grandma, or her 40-year-old uncle, or … well, the list is too long. At one name, it would be too long.

I hate the thought that, with one bad turn, every Christmas memory of Duchess might become final.

Even before this, we’d been trying to steel ourselves against that possibility. At 13 years and almost eight months, Duchess has been slowing down. Her step is a little more careful, her hearing not quite so sharp – though all bets are still off when food is involved. Her heart is still as big as ever, but the body that houses it has some miles on it.

But she keeps going. And we get used to that. The mind doesn’t like to acknowledge change and especially painful change. Not until it’s forced to.

Even now, I don’t know if we’re there yet.

It’s not the most comfortable thought for the holidays. But then, none of us is assured a Norman Rockwell Christmas. Sometimes “the most wonderful time of the year” carries pain, or anxiety, or uncertainty. Much as we might wish otherwise, the bad stuff doesn’t take a vacation for the holidays.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t hold on to something more.

I refuse to let fear for Duchess’s future poison her present. Whatever the doctors finally say, she’s still our dog, well-loved and cherished by us for over 10 years. Those chances for love aren’t going away yet. And we are going to continue to seize every one of them, whether it’s for one year, or three, or enough to make a canine Methuselah.

We will not let fear drive out joy.

Duchess has amazed us many times over the years. Maybe the Wonder Dog has another miracle left.

But whatever lies ahead, her love is here now.

Powerful.

Unmistakable.

Unforgettable.

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A Duchess in Waiting

When I leave for the store at night, Duchess parks herself beside the window and waits.  It’s a familiar position.

For the newcomers, Duchess the Wonder Dog is the older of our two canines, a 13-year-old mix of border collie and black Lab. She’s shy enough to stay nearly invisible when strangers are around and brilliant enough to have figured out how to beat a pedal trash can and get at the goodies inside.

But what she does best, and what she does often, is wait.

For years, that’s been part of her duties as furry bodyguard to my wife Heather, whom she has been devoted to ever since they reached an understanding over pizza. And like the passage in Ruth, the understanding is simple: “Whither thou goes, I shall go.”

When Heather is in bed not feeling well, Duchess waits nearby.

When Heather gets up, Duchess waits close behind, even if that means following her into the bathroom.

If someone rings the bell, Duchess lets our big dog Blake be the security guard, barking at the door in challenge – her job is to be the messenger, running back to “tell” Heather, and wait by her side.

And of course, she does the waiting any dog might do, whether it’s in the front room to wait for one of us to return, or near the table to see if a stray bit of food might slip. (Admittedly, Big Blake is the master of the latter, with eyes and jaws that are about as opportunistic as a rising politician.)

Now, as the years go by, she’s added some new waiting. Sometimes it’s harder to watch.

She sometimes waits by our bed with intense eyes, trying to see how she can get all the way up when her legs no longer want to do the job.

She waits behind Heather just a beat too long, especially in the kitchen, where my wife will suddenly turn to find a furry hurdle in her path that wasn’t there before.

She still waits with devotion, love and care. But now, there’s a bit of age in the mix as well. And it’s hard to see. We like to think that the ones we love won’t change, can’t change. We don’t like acknowledging that even the best of times can be all too short.

That’s true of dogs. Of people. Of almost anything in the world we give our heart to.

And yet, despite the frailties and the changes, the core remains the same.

Duchess is still Duchess. Her other waiting hasn’t stopped, even if it has become more tentative at times. Her loving heart and curious mind are still there. Sometimes the body is, too, especially on snowy winter days that still make her energetic beyond belief.

So much changing, but so much the same. It’s both the reason the changes hurt so much at times, and the great comfort in the midst of them.

And it’s the unchanging pieces we’ll always remember.

I don’t mean this to be an early eulogy. The time to mourn is later – hopefully much, much later. A love that is still present should be celebrated, embraced, and enjoyed. Leave the future to its time. You’re together now, and now is the time to appreciate it.

Sure, a time will come when things move slower and with more care. But don’t ever let the celebration stop, even if it has to move at a more deliberate tempo.

After all, love is well worth the wait.

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Growing Ivy

My niece Ivy is one year old.

Let me try that again.

My niece Ivy is one year old.

It still doesn’t seem possible.

Oh, I know it’s not just possible. It’s inevitable. But it still seems strange. A year ago, she was this cute and wrinkly little being who had escaped her mother’s body in record time. Now she’s this cute and far less wrinkly little being with bright  hair, a bright smile and a crawling pace to match her little Ferrari shirt.

Ivy passed the milestone on Monday. Probably in fifth gear. And it looks even faster one time zone away, as I follow her progress through picture after picture from Kirkland, Wash. Nine months ago, I was dangling keys in front of her face to stop her from crying. At this rate, it may only be another nine before we’re hiding the keys to stop her from driving.

Incredible.

Why do we always say that?

Maybe because it makes us look at ourselves again. Most of us, I’ve noticed, have a magic age that we mentally locked onto long ago. For me, even though I know darn well I’m 38, my mind froze time somewhere around 25, when I got married. Anything that’s a reminder of being past that point comes as a minor shock.

Babies are a constant reminder.

They can’t help it. Every day it’s something new. Opening eyes, learning to stand, nearly pulling the drawer of a end table onto themselves. You have to watch every single second or you’ll miss something – probably something that will go straight off the carpet and into their mouths.

Ivy has become 365 times older than she was the first time I saw her picture. She’s four times older than when I first saw her face. There’s room for a lot of change there.

And it forces everyone – moms, dads, uncles, aunts and more – to notice the changes in themselves as well.

The good news is, for a lot of us, it comes with its own cure.

No, I’m not the dashing (ha) young man just out of graduate school and just into newspapers. Thirteen years has stolen hair, added inches, accumulated stories and stress. But to a young lady in Washington (and another one in Arvada, and a young man in Johnstown), I’m one of the most fascinating people in the world.

She’s not going to see the changes that sometimes bother me. Not for a long time to come. What she’s going to see are the friends and the family who love her very much and can’t wait for the next step.

And that, dear Ivy, will never change.

Happy birthday.