Stopped

In all the years when I probably could have been stopped by a cop for a wee bit more alcohol in my system than should be in anyone behind a two-ton machine, it never happened.

Well once, after a very late night at a bar sometime shortly after I graduated from college, I did pull out in front of a car a bit closer than I should have. It happened to be a cop and I did get stopped. But he let me go after a quick chat. And frankly, I was more tired that intoxicated anyway, something he probably knew.

No, I tend to get pulled over for weaving when I’m perfectly sober. It’s now happened twice.

The first time was years ago when I was driving through Michigan’s upper peninsula with my mother. It was late. We were exhausted. We were coming home from Montana. I was driving my father’s boat-like Mercury Grand Marquis. I knew I was tired but was in the zone where you don’t grasp just how tired until you fly over small hill a bit too fast — like a roller coaster — and find yourself gripping the wheel as the car makes a slight screeching sound rounding a curve. Even my mother perked up to say, “Watch it.”

And then came the cop. Thank god. He surely thought I was DWI until he saw us, me worn out looking in a baseball cap with my mother beside me. “Get some coffee and some sleep,” he urged us before letting us go. And we did.

That episode came back to me in the past few days as I was ruminating about what happened last Thursday night when I was stopped on my way home from a visit to my cousin’s house.

Let’s start with the facts: I had a mild headache, I was quite tired, though not sleepy, and I was, though I admit I should not have been, chatting on my cell phone. There’s more: I was wearing my glasses (which I’m not as used to as I am my contacts) because my eye was healing from an infection. The roads were dark and it seemed I kept coming upon construction zones and orange barrels placed in ways that I found confusing in terms of which way to go around them. Plus, I was driving on a road I’m never on, even though I was by now just a few miles from my home.

Oh, yes, I’d had a couple of beers, but that was early in the evening, at least two to three hours earlier, followed by water and soda pop and about half a can of mixed nuts.

So there I am, sitting at a light, a big bright red left-turn arrow signal. I don’t see those too often so I was especially diligent to heed it. As soon as it turned green, but not too soon, I proceeded through the light to turn left and head south.

Then I saw the lights. “It can’t be me,” I thought as they continued tight behind me.

“You’re kidding,” I said, a little irritated as I pulled to the right of the southbound lane stopping as close the curb as I could. By then I’d realized it could be something as simple as my tail lights not working.

A female officer appeared at my window as I grabbed for my wallet. “Can I see your license and registration and proof of insurance please?”

“Sure,” I said, adding a bit incredulously: “Did I do something wrong?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

What’s the big secret? I thought as she walked back to her car, my mind fumbling for what I’d done, thinking it can’t be the alcohol. I’m fine.

She came back to my window. “Where are you coming from?”

I told her the city where my cousin lives, probably 10 to 15 miles away.

“What’s in That City?” she said in what sounded like a mocking sing-song voice.

“My cousin,” I said flatly.

“You were weaving and then when we stopped you you nicked the curb.”

Weaving?? Where? I thought. And hitting the curb? On a dark road, with a cop tight behind me with blinding lights and no shoulder to pull onto. Are you kidding me? I nick curbs all the time, I wanted to say.

I don’t even remember if she asked if I’d been drinking but I knew that’s what she thought.

I felt mild panic as I told her I had two beers much earlier, that I’d had an eye problem and didn’t see as well with my glasses, which I was not used to wearing. Then there was all the construction, unfamiliar streets, the headache, the tiredness. I almost said: Feel free to breathalyze me. Then thought, don’t be stupid. What if…??

“Are you using eye drops?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering what that had to do with anything.

She shined a light in my eyes and asked me to follow it.

Then she asked me to recite the alphabet “without singing it.”

By now I was feeling guilty. My heart was beating a bit faster. I was even nervous about reciting the alphabet.

I think I did okay but all of a sudden after V and before W I sort of wondered if I did something wrong. I think I did okay.

“Without looking at your watch or clock can you tell me what time it is?”

I said I thought it was about 10:30/10:45.

The second she walked away, I looked at my clock: 10:30 on the dot.

She returned for more. This time asking me to step out of the car and walk back right into her bright headlights. By now I saw she was with a male partner, who was letting her run the show.

I was almost finding this comical had it not been so unnerving. Still tired and headachy and not feeling 100 percent, I was putting my energy into being as normal as possible.

“Do you have any weapons on you?”

I nearly laughed as I said, “Of course not,” as she — with the first bit of humanness I’d seen — said as she PATTED ME DOWN: “Sorry but I have to do this to everyone.”

Then she asked if I had good balance.

“Well, I do yoga…”

“Oh, then you have VERY good balance,” she interrupted, again sounding slightly mocking.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s THAT good. I don’t normally do yoga in these shoes,” I said looking at the black wedge sandals on my feet.

“You can take them off if you want.”

“No I’ll try like this first, I’m pretty comfortable in them.” I didn’t want to stand barefoot, which felt naked, on the concrete road.

I did as she told me, hands to my sides, one leg up straight in front of me several inches above the ground while counting until she told me to stop.

I got to about 19 before she said stop. I was still on one foot. Steady. I was pleased.

She wanted more. She told me to walk toe to heel for nine steps before turning around and walking back nine steps in as straight of a line as possible.

Now these things can be a challenge if you have had NOTHING to drink and feel fine, are in the comfort of your own home and have no one judging.

Go ahead. Try it. I’ll wait.

See? It’s not so easy, is it?

So there I am thinking, nothing I do is convincing her. I wished I could have been a fly on the wall to see what I was actually like.

I did the heel to toe. I thought I did fine, especially considering how I felt and now with the added stress of being treated like a criminal, out in the street with blinding lights on me.

I kept waiting for them to let me go. What more did they want? I was not drunk. I knew that. I didn’t know if I had some trace of alcohol in my system. What does .08 feel like anyway? I have no idea. I wish I knew. But I knew it couldn’t possibly be what I had in my system.

It wasn’t over.

She led me up from the curb onto the grass where her partner was standing. She put the light in my eyes again, asking me to track it. I thought I followed it fine.

“How am I doing?” I finally asked.

“We’ll let you know.”

Again, what is the big secret?

Suddenly, her partner is asking me to take a deep breath and blow though this plastic straw.

Finally, I thought. A breathalyzer. Why didn’t we just do this from the beginning? At the same time I hoped those two beers two to three hours earlier weren’t in my system more than I thought.

I finished. He looked at the instrument and said, “You’re free to go.” With that they both turned and hurried to their car.

I was a little stunned. “What was it?” I called to them as they moved away from me.

“Zero,” he called to me.

They barely turned back.

I felt vindicated as I called something to them about being sure to be careful and alert on my drive home, something I’d have expected them to offer to me. I mean, after all, here they went through all this thinking I’m intoxicated, but when I blow a zero, they just take off? Suddenly the “weaving” they saw as enough reason to stop me wasn’t worth a word of caution for any other possible reason?

At least that cop up north cautioned us to get some coffee and sleep and be careful.

I felt used.

It also left me wondering if they really did suspect I was intoxicated. Were they just cracking down on everyone? Practicing their skills?

So many questions.

At least I know one thing. I can handle a couple of drinks as long as I don’t have any more within a couple of hours of hitting the road.

And, it’s not a good idea to be chatting on your cell phone when you’re behind a two-ton machine.

And those are lessons worth knowing,

My Mom: A Guide to Happiness

I was just reading an interesting article on money and happiness. It talked about how the common wisdom has always been that money cannot buy happiness, but how now, according to a couple of researchers, that in fact, if used correctly, money can indeed buy happiness.

The main difference was this: If people buy “stuff,” from fancy cars and watches to bigger homes, ultimately they are not much if any happier. But those who give money away — to charities or to other people, or spend it on experiences, like vacations or even a bar crawl with friends — they are actually, yes, happier.

This information confirmed something I always thought — that money can contribute to happiness if it buys you experiences like education, travel, time with friends and, more powerfully, freedom, particularly from a lousy job.

It also immediately made me think of my mom.

Just the other day she was sitting on the couch watching the news when she heard that the lottery had reached $200 million. Her face always lights up at the thought of buying a ticket and actually winning.

“I’d love to win the lottery,” she said. “God, wouldn’t that be fantastic? Why don’t you buy a ticket?”

I always turn all grumbly and say, “No way. That’s just throwing your money away.”

And mostly it is a waste, considering the odds of actually winning the thing, or any portion of it. But sometimes she gives in to fantasy (although, yes, there is the minute chance she could win) and contemplates what she’d do with all that money.

“Of course, the government would take half,” she went on, deciding what she’d do with $100 million. At this point, because I’ve heard this before, I get a little annoyed because even though this money does not exist, I know what she’ll say.

“I’d love to give it away. I’d give at least million to each of my nieces and nephews and my sister. And all my charities….”

She relishes the fantasy with such enthusiasm I wonder how I can possibly be related to her. But then I’m glad to see some common sense surface: “I’d keep about $30 million. That’s all I’d need.”

At that point, I realize even $30 million is way more than she’d need, this woman who these days is so down to earth it pains her to even buy a new shirt without at least throwing one away.

But then I realize, she’s not thinking of possessions at all, or hardly. She’d probably make her home and property into a sanctuary for homeless animals, and the money would free her from the worry of food and vet bills. She could even hire workers to tend to the menagerie.

She’d probably spend some on travel and taking friends out to dinner, maybe fix her Jeep’s air conditioning or possibly even buy a new car, but nothing fancy, just something safe and sturdy to get her around if her old Jeep gives out.

I have come to realize that any slight irritation that arises within me when I hear her talk of all this sharing and giving so much away is really an awakening of my own fear of scarcity.

Though I’m far from a materialistic status seeker (thanks to my family), I admit, my first thought is not to give away to others (other than those closest to me, of course) but to hoard. To make sure I’ve always got enough money to be comfortable, to travel, to leave a bad job, to have the freedom to do what I want.

So while I’m thinking I can hold my head up and say, "See? I’m honorable, I don’t want a Gucci watch or Ferrari, a mansion or Chanel bag. I want experiences," I realize I have to take a cue from my mom and think even more of sharing the wealth.

I also realize that's something you can do right now. Not “one day” if you win the lottery. I don’t have a lot of extra money, but I bought lunch for a friend recently and it felt great.

Of course I’m still far from being where my mother is.

I used to tease her when my cousin and his wife and kids would stop by and she would offer them things as they got ready to leave. Nothing fancy, just what she had around.

“Do you want to take some bananas?” she’d say, pointing to a few sitting in a bowl. Or she might pick up a bag of chips and say, “Here, take these.”

At the time I’d think she was silly, knowing full well my cousin could easily afford to buy his own chips. But that was not the point. And now I just think she’s amazing. She just loves to give. And I know, without any doubt, I could count on her to literally give me the shirt off her back whether I needed it or not.

More important, I realize it’s a rare person who is so giving and with such enthusiasm. I’m lucky to have her as a role model.

And I didn’t really need to read that story about how money really can buy happiness. My mother already taught me.


If you want, see the story here:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/23/happiness_a_buyers_guide/?page=full.

On My Mind....

New post coming... soon. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, this is the kind of stuff that's been on my mind:

The author of the below linked article on the issue of buying kidneys (due to the crisis of too many people waiting for one while on dialysis combined with the shortage available from either deceased donors or living donors like myself) says:

"History suggests that once the rich and powerful figure out a way to exploit the poor in one way, they'll pretty quickly start pushing the envelope in related directions as well."

I say: Not all people who need a kidney are rich and powerful and plenty would do ANYTHING to raise the money to buy one, and it would be money well spent. If only they would allow the system to regulate this. Maybe instead of paying a donor the donor would get lifetime health insurance or another incentive.

My main concern would be that people taking money to donate a kidney get a very good health screening for their sake and the recipient's.

Donating a kidney to save a life is a relatively safe procedure for living donors. You can -- as many, many people do and don't even realize it -- live a full and healthy life with one kidney. The second is really like a spare.

The best solution? Have people OPT-OUT of being donors on the donor card rather than OPT-IN. It's worked wonderfully in other countries and let's face it, you aren't using it anymore at that point anyway. Plus, one person saves two lives (two kidneys).

Really folks, something must be done.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/selling-your-kidney

Father’s Day

I will see my father on Father’s Day.

I wonder what other people are doing to celebrate. Picnics, BBQs, cakes, golf dates, bike rides, opening presents.

We might do some of that — I have a card and a gift and my mom might get a cake.

One thing I do know is how we will spend part of our day:

He and I will gather in the afternoon or early evening for his three-hour in-home dialysis treatment just as we do every other day. Just as we’ve been doing for almost two years.

First we will set up the machine that cleans his blood. It’s about the size of a small refrigerator. We’ll open the door and install a cartridge, then hang a bag of saline. We’ll connect a series of lines, made of surgical tubing, which ultimately get connected to my father. We’ll start the machine to get the saline running through the cartridge and eliminate air bubbles. That takes about 20 minutes.

Then one of us will lay out gauze pads, Bandaids, two fat needles, alcohol and betadine wipes, adhesive tape to secure the needles, syringes to fill with saline, and one syringe we’ll fill with the blood thinner heparin. My father usually heads to the kitchen at this point to make coffee.

The machine will chime, alerting us to a few more things we need to do before he is ready to hook up. Then my father will wash and prep his left arm, the one with the bulging fistula (an artery-vein) that winds its way up between his inner wrist and the crook of his elbow.

He will sit, inserting one needle, then the other. For each, once we see the blood pulsing through the base of the narrow surgical tubing connected to the needle, I’ll secure it with a Bandaid then connect it to the tubing that snakes through the machine.

We will start the machine, ramping up the cycler to our cruising speed of 460. If all goes smoothly — no alarms, no need to remove tape and adjust the needles — I can work on my computer just a few feet away for the next three hours. Sometimes I read or get him something to eat, pour him some coffee or fetch him some paperwork since he’s confined to a chair.

He will take regular blood pressure readings and record that with information from the machine onto a log sheet. He might watch the news or do a crossword puzzle. He might nod off for a bit or work on his laptop. He’s been enjoying discovering Seinfeld through re-runs. I laugh too.

We always talk. Some days more. Some days less.

Last weekend he asked, “What did you do today? It was a nice sunny day.”

“I went for a bike ride,” I said, a little taken aback at his interest, and for a moment I felt a tinge of guilt, a fleeting self-consciousness at my energy and freedom. Not that he would want me to feel that way. Maybe he just wanted to talk about something other than dialysis or the news.

I thought how nice it would be if he had gone for a bike ride, too, with me or not. I don’t know the last time he went for a bike ride.

My father gets around. He shops, keeps in touch with his friends, goes to a weekly conferences related to his profession, though he’s retired. But he's also tired. Dialysis takes up a lot of energy and, especially, time. More for him than for me.

Sometimes I think he feels guilty for taking my time. For relying on me.

He shouldn’t. This is my commitment. I’ve made this part of my life.

And the truth is, though I don’t like that he has to be on dialysis, I like being able to help, being someone he can depend on after so many years of me depending on him. And I even find comfort in my routine of being there every other day. It anchors my weeks.

So, yes, I will see my father on Father’s Day.

It’s not what many people will do this day. But I don’t care.

I will give him a silly card and some fancy coffee that we will share in coming weeks and a book I think he’ll like.

And we will talk. We will talk of sunny days and things other than dialysis.

Morton's F'ing Toe

Mother F!

I stood in the crowd of people wanting my friend to shut the F up! It’s not that she was saying anything that embarrassed me so much as she was infuriating me because she might be right.

I did not want to hear it. I did not want to hear it. I did not want to hear it.

Worse, as she said it she was standing there in these stupid “sensible” shoes:

“You probably have Morton’s Neuroma. That’s what I have. I can’t wear high heels anymore.”

Shut up. Shut up. Shut the F up.

I’m usually not this bad about denial. But in contemplating my possible future with heels, I’ve taken to telling people lately that I’d rather give up drinking alcohol for the rest of my life rather than give up high heels.

I had a kind of reckoning last New Year’s Eve after my left foot was screaming in such pain it might has well have been throttling me by the neck begging for mercy. I knew then I had a bigger problem than I wanted to admit.

For days afterward my toes, specifically the middle toe and the one next to my baby toe as well as those joints below them, alternated between numbness and pain when I walked even in bare feet.

I swore off heels unless absolutely necessary. (And yes, it is necessary sometimes.)

I tried them again — a pair of boots this time — a month or two later, for just a couple of hours, and sure enough, the pain emerged. It was not so bad because I didn’t wear them too long but I could see this was not something that was going to go away nicely.

I tried again a couple of months later, after finding myself unable to resist a pair of shiny brownish-red boots on sale for like $30 (Christ, they were originally $175!). I wore them, with hopeful caution, to a birthday dinner with friends. I mean, I was in them maybe three or four hours, most of that time sitting.

By the end of the night, the combination of walking and toe squeezing got the best of my foot. Sitting with my legs crossed under the table, I could not believe such an isolated and specific pain in my foot would cause me to want to scream, to be incapable of focusing on anything else, to feel damn near ready to throw up.

Desperate for some relief, I bought some shoe pads at Nordstrom and proceeded wearing heels only as needed, mostly wedges, taking care to notice which shoes I could handle and which I could not.

The night my friend in her “sensible” shoes declared this to me a month or so ago, I was wearing a slightly chunkier heel of maybe three inches, a sort of rounded-toe Mary Jane wingtip-style. I think we got on the topic because she was admiring my heels. I probably brought up my foot pain obsession.

Oh, how I hated that term: Morton’s Neuroma. It sounds like cancer.

Of course, I went home that night thinking, how could she possibly know what my problem is? She probably is so mad she has it she wants everyone else to have it, too. Pick on someone else, I thought.

Then I Googled it.

My god. I could have drawn the picture with the big red blob indicating pain exactly where I felt it. And the description was right on. It’s a nerve issue.

I read that you can treat it by numbing the nerve with cortisone injections.

I later asked my dad, a doctor, if he’d heard of it.

“Morton’s Toe?” he said. Ewwww. An even grosser term, I thought. “Sure,” he said, offering up yet another treatment option. “They cut the nerve.”

I immediately wondered how much that cost.

Don’t look at me like that. I’m only five-foot-three and half.

I suppose they do that if it’s bad enough. I’ve been contemplating seeing an orthopedic surgeon or podiatrist ever since. Though I do fear they’ll look at me with disgust when they realize my reason is so I can wear heels.

What’s interesting is that, as I’ve been sharing my self-diagnosis with some friends, several seem to know what it is. “Morton’s Toe?” they say, proffering up the hated words.

Some of them have since decided they have the exact same thing.

Clearly, this is far more common that I realized.

Regardless, I have a dilemma. I still need a proper diagnosis, then have to determine what I can or can’t afford to do about it.

Now as I look with equal parts nostalgia and fear at my collection of pointy-toe stilettos and heels of four inches or more, I'm thankful for summer with its mostly open-toe wedge-style sandals and espadrilles.

For now, I am doing my best to defy Morton and his stupid Neuroma Toe.

But I’m no dummy. I always have a second pair of "sensible" shoes in my car (they’re actually kinda cute), just in case. Which, let’s face it, is what any sane podiatrist will tell women today anyway:

Wear walking shoes on the street or from the parking structure, then slip the heels on at your desk or destination. Only wear as needed.

And yes, they are needed.

A Death in the Family

I was on my way to other plans when my mother called me that last Wednesday in April.

“Can you come up here? Mahie’s sick,” she said a little before 2 p.m. I was standing in a store looking at candles.

My mother sounded tired. She was. She’d called the vet, Dr. M, after finding Mahlie that morning thrashing around in her stall. Colic, it seemed. I wasn’t panicked, as we’d been through this before. But I dropped what I was doing to get there as soon as I could.

Mahie, our beautiful black half-Arab half-Welsh pony who was born our property, was standing beside my mother behind the barn. Her reddish-tinged hair was damp and matted while her thick black mane hung in wet clumpy strands. For years too fat, Mahlie has recently been looking trim and healthy. Today she looked thin.

She had blood dripping from her nose. I was alarmed until I realized it was the result of a tube Dr. M inserted there to get warm water and mineral oil into her stomach to encourage some movement through her system. Then he smeared a steroid ointment in her open eyes, which were rimmed with blood from her bashing her head in her stall.

I was also alarmed at how dull she appeared until the vet explained that he’d tranquilized her to do his examination. He filled me in on what he’d told my mother. That her chances of “making it” were about “15 percent.”

He wasn’t sure if it was colic, basically a stomachache, which can be lethal if they roll on the ground to alleviate their pain — which she was certainly doing. That thrashing can cause the stomach to twist, which chokes off the digestive system and requires emergency surgery if they don’t die first. He thought it could be that kind of obstruction or even possibly an obstruction caused by a tumor.

Her heart rate and respirations were double what they should have been, obvious signs of distress. She showed no interest in the fresh green grass or spring hay. She had no gut sounds and was not making any manure. That’s death to a horse.

Her right front leg shook with fatigue and her head hung down almost to the ground. I wanted to hold her up but the vet said to leave her be.

“It’s the tranquilizer,” he reminded. “She has a strong urge to balance herself.”

She looked like she was dying.

As he left my exhausted mother and me alone with her, he gave us instructions for the next “few days” — a sign of hope, I thought — quickly explaining how to administer several doses of an anti-inflammatory medicine, more ointment for her eyes and an electrolyte mix to shoot into her mouth with a large syringe.

“Worst case scenario is she goes back down in the next couple of hours and you call Dr. C,” he said, referring to the vet on call.

* * * *

Mahlie would have been 33 this month.

My mother cared for her every morning and every night for all those years. Few parents care for a child that long.

Times such as these, coping with a suddenly sick animal, disrupt. They grab hold of your carefully laid plans and rip them to pieces. They tear at your heart. They exhaust and confuse.

We’ve lost pets before, so many. But this was different. Mahie was the last in a long line of horses in our family. It was the end of an era.

When our last horse, Tess, had to be put down a few years ago, I watched as Mahlie, clearly agitated, trotted around her body, by then covered by a green plastic tarp. She pawed at the lifeless mound with her hoof and tugged on the tarp with her teeth as if trying to wake her friend.

I wished I could have soothed her. Picked her up and cradled her and said, “It will be okay.”

We worried for Mahlie then. She’d been used to being in the company of horses. As many as eight at one time. And five llamas, too.

But she adapted. And for us, she kept the barnyard alive. And my mother was able to maintain the routine she’s had for so many years. Grain in the morning, with fresh hay and water then turning her out to the pasture. At night, always around dusk or bit after, she’d call Mahlie into a clean stall to enjoy grain with chunks of freshly chopped apples and carrots.

* * * *

By the time Dr. M left, I was still hopeful, thinking I might even keep some of my plans that day. As my mother rested on a camping stool in the middle of the barnyard, I brushed Mahlie’s coat and combed her mane, which seemed to relax her. I cut off any stubborn matted pieces of hair. Her eyes and nose were no longer bloody. She looked good, too, which, I imagined, also helped her feel good. Maybe that's an illusion we need to give ourselves.

As the drug wore off, she perked up and I began to walk her. She even seemed to want to walk me as I pulled back to slow her down. It was going to be a long day, I thought. I didn’t want to tire her. She even bowed her head, we thought to sniff the grass. Maybe it was. Maybe it’s just in her nature. But she would not take a bite. Later we brought her grain and hay. Still no interest.

Still, we were encouraged enough that after a couple of hours I let her off the lead rope to walk on her own. “Let’s see what she does,” my mother said. I went to clean her stall, just out of sight, then heard my mother calling to her. I saw as she got up to follow Mahlie around the back barn. And then I watched Mahlie go down.

I cursed myself for letting her go. Once she was down it was not in our control to make her get up. But even then we told ourselves she might just be tired, maybe she needed to rest, she’d been up all night and walking for hours and not feeling well. She looked exhausted, like she just wanted to sleep, lying her head down on the ground, her eyes looking sleepy.

But then she groaned and began to roll.

We paged Dr. C.

* * * *

Dr. C was the vet who helped rescue Mahlie a little over a year ago when she escaped my parents’ property one night. Mahlie had slipped on a shallow icy pond and couldn’t get up. I thought she wouldn’t make it then. But we pulled her through. (A Super Bowl Tale)

This was also the vet who was there with Dr. M some six or seven years ago when Mahlie had colic for the first time I can ever recall. She was always so hearty.

I was there that time, too, walking her repeatedly and watching her through the night, checking her heart rate and respirations, seeing if she was making any manure or showing any interest in eating and making sure she did not lie down and roll. I even hand-pressed a large bag of fluids into her through an IV line to keep her hydrated.

At that time, I remember deciding in my mind sometime in the wee hours — after hearing no gut sounds with my father’s stethoscope, seeing no interest in food and seeing no manure — that she was not going to make it.

I was sleeping on a sofa downstairs at my parents’ house, mourning her imminent death, when my father came in from outside early the next morning and said she’d passed some manure, proof that she was not obstructed.

You’d have thought it was Christmas. I couldn’t believe it. I felt guilty for giving up on her if only in my mind. Even the vets were surprised and heartened.

* * * *

Shortly after we’d paged Dr. C, for whatever reason, Mahlie surprised us by getting up on her own. Was she feeling better?

We walked again, the same restless kind of walk. Urgent, yet disorganized. I’d stand still and she’d make a tight circle around me, reminding me of the way a dog goes in a circle before lying down. I didn’t want to think that’s all she wanted. If we could just keep her moving…

I compulsively listened to her gut. I know I heard a few gut sounds, a gurgle, a pop. No she was not eating and her heart rate and respiration were still high but it was a hopeful sign.

I began to wish we had not called the vet. Just then, before the vet arrived, Mahlie went down again, rolling on the soft grass before sitting up with her head lifted and legs tucked near her. She almost looked comfortable.

Dr. C told us she could not examine her conclusively if she was not standing so we desperately tried again to get her to stand, calling her name, tugging at her lead rope. Nothing.

Then, like the last time, Mahlie decided on her own to stand. We were relieved because now Dr. C could tell us more. We knew there was a decision to be made. God, please tell us something conclusive so we’ll know what to do.

Like Dr. M, Dr. C was not 100 percent of anything except the “15 percent chance.”

She said Mahlie’s heart rate was even higher than before, which I attributed to her rolling and getting up. She listened to her gut. “I hear nothing,” she said.

I told her I know I heard some sounds. “You probably heard her breathing,” she said. I didn’t think so.

Dr. C talked and talked, offering reasons to put her down but also reasons to wait, maybe buying us time as we decided what to do. She said things like how she knew we liked to try everything in our power before letting go and that this was our last horse so she was willing to give us the night if we wanted, leaving us with pain killers to inject every two hours, but also that this could be a painful experience for Mahlie and she didn’t deserve that after all these years, that older horses were more stoic than the young ones and internalize the pain, maybe one reason she seemed somewhat mellow, and that if we did wait it out Mahlie would have to be much, much improved my morning to have hope, but that it was up to us.

I did ask if it was her horse what she would do. I was surprised when she said she would probably put her down.

* * * *

I don’t think my mother was thinking completely straight. She was exhausted both physically and emotionally. I was confused, too, and didn’t want to make the call. I told my mother I’d do whatever she wanted. I later felt bad putting that on her.

We brought Mahlie into her stall to see what she’d do. At least she relieved her bladder, as she always liked to do inside a perfectly clean stall. She didn’t lie down but for some reason my mother wanted to let her do what she wanted, free from a lead rope, and said if she went down again, we would put her down.

The vet looked at me. I think she knew Mahlie would go down, that this was how my mother needed to rationalize it. I was pretty sure Mahlie would go down and wanted to tell my mother not to make that bet. But in the end, no decision felt right, though I think the vet felt it was right.

We watched as Mahlie walked outside again and then, ever so gently, lowered her body to the ground. The decision was made.

But even then, we were nagged with doubt despite a self-imposed pressure to go on with it as the sky grew dark and the vet got the injection ready. As we went back and forth, our bodies hovering close to Mahlie, I thought my mother might change her mind. I thought I might say something to stop it. Somehow we just proceeded.

I’ll tell you now, I wish I had stopped it, had taken Mahlie through the night, taken all the pain meds the vet could offer us to keep her comfortable until morning, and if she wasn’t better by then, put her down. I think that is the worst part. Not knowing if we did the right thing.

I was crouched down in front of Mahie and I said to my mother to come say goodbye. I held Mahlie’s head and kissed her on the nose. My mother did the same. We stroked and soothed her as the vet injected an overdose of anesthesia into the left side of her neck from behind. Mahlie started for a moment but very gently eased back and went to sleep.

It was over. No more pain. It was now dark, nearly 9 p.m.

* * * *

I could end this here, but there is more.

The guilt always creeps into your psyche. Did you do it too soon? Did you do it too late? Did you need to do it at all?

This time it was worse. I agonized for days afterward over putting her down that night, not seeing it through beyond any doubt. It’s all the more painful because she is the last. We should have held on just a little longer, I tell myself, not fully sure that would be the right thing to do but maye it was.

Regardless of our feelings, we had things to attend to. We covered Mahlie’s body with a couple of tarps, weighing them down with rocks.

I tell people how civilized it is by comparison to bury or cremate a dog or a cat. You can wrap them in a blanket, carry them like a baby. Even a large dog is easy for two people to handle.

A horse is different. You have to call someone with a truck with chains or a tractor strong enough to move her.

My mother decided to have her cremated. She called the same man she’s called many times before. He arrived Friday morning — it rained all day on Thursday — with his large yellow machinery.

I don’t recall what I said to this man as I uncovered her body and got choked up, but he said, as if to comfort me, “She’s not there. Her soul is gone. That’s just a body.” I knew he was right.

He scooped her up with the curved front shovel, being careful to go deep into the dirt and grass beneath her so as not to harm her body. He slowly lifted her high and took her to my parents’ pick up truck, now in the pasture, gently depositing her on the bed.

As I secured the tarp over her body, I kept thinking how I didn’t want anything blowing off and exposing her during the long journey through dirty, busy towns surrounded by traffic as we made our way to the facility where they cremate large animals.

* * * *

As we neared the cremation facility almost an hour later, we called ahead to confirm the directions. We were told just then that the person who does the cremations was out of town until Monday and that Mahlie would be placed on a tarp in a barn and covered with ice if necessary. My mother panicked. Normally they are put in for cremation the day you arrive. We hated thinking of her lying somewhere strange, alone, for days.

I know. She’s dead. Just a body, not a soul.

We pulled into a parking lot and sat for nearly an hour making frantic phone calls to find a place that could take her now. Or sooner. The most logical — and really the only other — place was an hour way. We were already an hour from my mother’s house. This would be two hours away. They would wait for us, they had a cooler, and would do the cremation in the morning.

We decided to stop at the first place to see how we felt, not looking forward to a long drive so far away. They understood our concern. If only we’d known the man was not available until Monday, we’d have made another plan.

Part of us wanted to leave Mahlie there, where we took Tess and other animals. At least it felt familiar. But then we left for the other place. That was better, we told ourselves as we drove away. We second-guessed ourselves within a few miles and nearly turned back. We just wanted it to be over. We just wanted someone to tell us what to do and that it would be okay. We continued on.

By the time we got to this strange place so far from home, we were too tired to beat ourselves up, once again, over whether we’d made the right decision.

* * * *

Two nice young men were waiting for us in a pleasant office where urns and plaques were on display, mostly for dogs and cats. They had close cropped hair and were neatly dressed in uniforms of navy polo shirts and kaki pants. It was somehow reassuring, that they were professional, that they would take care of her.

You have such fear that they will not do what they say. Will she really be in a cooler? Will she really be cremated in the morning? Will we really have Mahlie’s actual ashes?

One guy asked for the truck keys as my mother wrote the check for a private cremation. I didn't want him to leave us here while he drove off with her. "We're okay, we'll drive her," I said.

We parked outside a metal building just across the road. I don’t know that we enjoy watching this process of loading and unloading, but it is part of the process. And maybe in that way we need to see it. See it through.

It’s hard to say goodbye. To know this is the last “look” you’ll have.

We watched as one of the guys maneuvered a hi-low vehicle after they secured chains to her legs above her hooves. They hoisted her up by a long bar that ran between each of the front and each of the rear hooves. I hated seeing her like this, upside down, head hanging.

We saw enough. We said goodbye. I kept looking from the truck to catch the last possible glimpse of her.

At first you cannot get that last image out of our mind. You fear this is how your will see her in your mind every time you think of her. But those last images do fade and give way to better ones.

* * * *

It’s been two weeks since that day we put her down.

Her ashes now sit in an urn at my mother’s house. Three braids we made out of locks from her mane are in a plastic bag. The vet said many people make jewelry from them.

We still grieve and feel guilt and remorse that we didn’t do more. We don’t know if it would have made a difference. But it might have. We know we can’t do anything about that now.

I also grieve for my mother, for whom I know it’s a harder struggle. After nearly 33 years of tending to Mahlie, and others before that, she tells me she keeps catching herself looking for Mahlie in the pasture out of habit. Or she thinks, “I have to go out to feed now.”

Then she remembers.

The barnyard and pastures, once flush with activity, have grown steadily quieter over the years.

Now they are still.

“I thought she’d go on forever,” my mother said the other day.

I did too.

Sign of the Times?

I'm a bit behind schedule in posting my next blog — I have my theme, just haven't had the time — so for now, let me share this....

I got a voice message the other day. At first I thought a friend had dialed me by mistake while in mid-conversation with someone else and I (or rather my voice mail) was there to eavesdrop — this has happened to you, right? It's an odd feeling knowing you are listening to someone who doesn't know you are listening, not that you did anything to make the situation happen.

But I digress. It was actually a telemarketer, a young unprofessional sounding woman, who did not realize the phone picked up. Clearly a sign of the times regarding the economy:

"His wife comes and goes, 'No no no, you're not ordering that magazine," she says to her co-worker. Then she sighs. "Boom! He goes, 'Oh no, I guess times are tough we're not ordering it.'" Then she laughs.

In other matters, I spend a lot of time with my dad, who does home hemodialysis. I'm his helper so am usually in the same room with him. When we are not having a conversation, he's listening to the radio or watching cable TV news.

Thank god at those time I'm usually working on my laptop.

I say thank god not because I have a problem with cable news.

I have a problem with the constant stream of Viagra, Cialis or other sexually-oriented drug or lubricant commercials.

Were I focused on the TV with him, how would I possibly react to the umteenth one about getting it on? Jesus, some of these make me blush. I've heard ads for products I didn't even know existed, most recently for women. It's like watching a X-rated soap opera for crying out loud.

I can't imagine what parents of teen children do when these ads come on. To think I used to be embarrassed by tampon commercials!

Bring it on Playtex. I'll take you any day.