Time for Really Going to the Dogs

Thursday night I found myself apologizing, not for the first time, to my dogs.

I was urging my senior Jack Russell terrier, Abi, to walk a little faster. She just turned 13 and what used to be a quick walk has been slowed somewhat by age. Having lost my senior male, Al, to cancer over a year ago, I no longer have another older dog to help set a reasonable pace that will give good exercise without being too fast. Instead we were meandering at a sniff-every-other-tuft-of-grass pace, being pulled by the two younger dogs.

I realized the fault wasn't all her advancing years. It was mine and the toll that the last seven months has taken on what used to be my life. Daily dog walks, which had been part of my life for years and helped hold back the signs of aging for both of us, haven't been the routine event they were at one time.

"We'll get it back, Abi," I said, "just like I need to get mine back. We'll get back in shape together."

I realized I needed to apologize, not just to her for contributing to her lack of muscle tone, but to all my dogs and all the dogs who have been "mine" for a few days since Dec. 15 when police found my son dead in his apartment.

Although I've made several false starts at picking up the threads of my previous routines, this week has felt better, and I think I may have found a rhythm that I can live with and maintain. I've done it for a week with PiYo in the early morning and dog walks after dinner (although once cold weather comes that may change to after lunch). The changes help my schedule merge with my family's work, but I'll still go for a morning walk when I get the chance, like I did today.

With that in mind, I think it's time to apologize and try to put my failures behind me.

If I could, this is what I would say to them all:

"I'm sorry that the walks you had come to expect every day when you stayed with me weren't always delivered, that more often than not, I just wanted to sit with you. Instead of stretching my legs and yours, I wanted to huddle inside the broken shell of my heart and try to find a way to live again. Instead of being content to dwell in my mind, meditating or praying, and listen to the sound of our combined feet on the road, the wind and the birds, the jingle of leashes and tags, the last place I wanted to be was where it was too quiet.

"I'm sorry that when I came out the front door in athletic shoes, it was to get in the car and drive to a Zumba or PiYo class, leaving your bright eyes and wagging tails to dim and slow as I disappeared. I couldn't bear another minute of my own company or even your silent companionship. I needed the distraction of other people, the escape of getting away.

"I'm sorry that while I was supposed to be caring for you, I was feeding and cleaning up after you, but you were really the ones caring for me. Never once did your disappointment make you bitter toward me. Instead, you nurtured my healing with soft fur and damp tongues, warm little bodies in my lap, or big shoulders leaning against my legs.

"Even though my words couldn't explain what was going on, somehow you knew what I needed. Although you were always hopeful and eager, you were still willing to accept what I could give you. What you gave me was doggy love and time to mourn and begin to heal.

"So not only am I sorry, but I'm grateful. There have been days that, had I not needed to get out of bed to make sure you were fed and had a chance to do your doggy business, chances are I might not have moved. There were times that it was just the sense of being needed that kept me going.

"In addition to apologizing, I want you to know I'm trying to do better. I'm trying to find a new routine that works around changes in everyone else's work schedule and my need for sleep at some point during each 24-hour span. This week's dogs have been the first beneficiaries of the change, but I believe it will be ongoing.

"Thanks for your patience, love and understanding. I love you."

Cleaning Out a Flower Bed Is Like Recovery

Saturday afternoon, I spent a good hour or more reclaiming a flower bed.

It wasn't a matter of pulling weeds, I was actually pulling what started out as an innocent little vine in a container planting given me by a friend more than a decade ago.

The plant was variegated vinca minor and it seriously should come with a warning. It's almost as bad as the honeysuckle vines that insinuate themselves into everything. Maybe it is just my soil, or the fact that most of beds are set in perennials so I don't have to disturb them, but what was once a well behaved vine dripping over the side of large container had seriously run amok.

And I had let it.

As I pulled, dug and fought to clear it from around the azalea, dogwoods, irises, day lilies and hosta that are more welcome in the flower bed, it struck me that it was much like a bad habit, an addiction, sin even.

It started out innocently enough. It was pretty and caused no problems were it belonged. Kind of like indulging an all you can eat buffet or a cold beer now and then, enjoying a compliment from a coworker, experimenting with a drug -- it was nothing to worry about. It was enjoyable, attractive even.

Then it slopped over into areas where it didn't belong, creeping down the side of the pot toward the garden. That would be when you're eating the buffet every time you go out, getting drunk on a regular basis, flirting with the coworker, or beginning to enjoy getting high.

That's the time I should have nipped it in the bud. It would have been easy to pull up those few random strands that had taken root in the garden. But they weren't really hurting anything and I wasn't even sure they would survive the winter -- what potted plant does? So I left them and they lived and grew.

Like those bad choices, they were still manageable as long as I kept a close eye on what was happening. Each growing season I pruned and pulled and let them be the filler plants in my flower bed and they still didn't look bad. Their leaves were a pretty green and white and their flowers small and purple. They still seemed innocent and something I could control.

But last summer, the double whammy of a new baby to care for and the often less than spectacular weather mean that my careful monitoring of the situation lapsed. It was like the stress of life, which can cause you to drop your guard about that occasional habit you've allowed yourself to indulge in, and the next thing you know you're somewhere you never expected to be.

When I walked by the flower bed on my way to my future strawberry patch Saturday, all I could see was the vinca minor. It was draped over the top of the azalea, hiding the early signs of iris and day lily sprouts, masking any potential hosta growth. Without any attention for just a short time, it had taken over -- like finding your clothes don't fit and you don't remember how that happened, or that you've slipped into an affair with that coworker, or that you've got more than just a problem with drinking or drugs because you're addicted and your life is falling apart.

What really made me compare the vine to the problems of life was how hard it was to get rid of it. It wasn't just a matter of pulling a few plants like it would have been had I realized its potential for taking over. It was hard work and digging and pulling and damaging everything around it. It had kept the sun from the azalea, wrapped its roots around lilies, caused me to dig into hosta to pry it free. Good things, the plants I wanted in my flower bed, were damaged by its presence and injured by what it took to get it out. Because I had ignored its potential, it had taken over.

It wasn't pretty, it was ugly and overshadowed all the good and even after all my work and effort I know it's not really gone.

The flower bed looks good right now with the first signs of the plants that belong there peeping through the leaves. It's like our lives can look when we've lost the weight, ended the affair, finally gotten clean and sober. But that ugliness is still waiting to take over if we forget how easy it was to slip.

I'll have to spend all of this summer and maybe a few summers to come watching that flower bed and pulling the first signs of a variegated leaf or judiciously using a pesticide spray. I may even pray that the weather is in my favor, so that I have time to take care of it.

I know people who have worked so hard to get back to the life they wanted, then just want to enjoy it. Ethan was, I guess, one of those. He would get the addiction out of his life just like I did with the flower, purging it from all areas, and then whew, he was done. But it doesn't work that way. Keeping away from the drugs meant he needed to watch for any signs -- a new friend who was using, a desire to linger near them in the store, too much time alone thinking about how it used to feel to be high -- just like I've got to watch my flower bed. After months of being clean and wonderful to be around, of rebuilding the life he'd wrecked with drugs, getting his body back into shape and mending fences, he'd relax and soon we were all heading down that same path again. Until everything that was good in life was gone. Until he was gone as well.

It's the same for any bad habit. Even after you put in all the work and pain of getting it out of your life, making sure it doesn't make it's way back requires vigilance and a lot of prayer, because we're not really strong enough to do that kind of "weeding" on our own. It's not over when you quit, because that can too often turn into a pause, not actually stopping.

So I'll be keeping an eye on my flower bed, and praying for people who are trying to clean up their own weed patches, that we can all root out what is causing ugliness and hurting the things we care about, even if it means that we have to keep working to enjoy the beauty we know is there.