About dogs and people becoming unleashed

Today I learned a valuable lesson.  Follow me into this little story if you wish to know what it was!

I woke up this morning and like every morning, dragged myself to the coffee maker for a cup of awake.  I sat down with my coffee to look at the news (aka Facebook) and was delighted to see people posting information of something I had failed to realize.  Today is the first day of spring! 

Although this really doesn't do much to alter my day to day living, it filled me with such joy.  I love spring.  It's the time of new beginnings and everything feels full of promise. 

It was in this frame of mind that I greeted the day. 

After two weeks of upheaval, I got back to my morning routine today.  I dropped my daughter off at school and headed with my dog to the off-leash park.  It was a glorious spring morning.  Blue skies, sunshine, crisp - what more could a girl and her dog ask for?

We started our walk and Riley got into a little scrap with a couple of cocker spaniels.  It was over quickly and their owner and I commiserated with each other about our dogs and then moved on. 

We continued to have a lovely walk.  We met up with some of the "regulars", had a lovely chat, Riley socialized, and I felt so incredibly grateful to be alive.

On our way back to the van, we met up with some unfamiliar dogs.  To avoid problems, I leashed Riley.  We continued on without incident. 

Then we met up with a big black dog.  She was still a puppy.  I had Riley on her leash and they were sniffing at each other, all was going very smoothly.  Riley wanted to engage in play, so I let her off her leash.  The puppy and her had a ball.  They chased and tumbled and ran....until a pack of schnauzers approached.  Now, I'm familiar with these dogs.  Riley and them do NOT get along.  So I went to leash her.  I was too late.  Her and one of them got into it and it was chaos.  Someone finally got a hold of Riley and I went over to grab her and leash her - she got away a second time and more scrapping ensued.  And THEN it got ugly.  I was in the process of leashing her up when an unknown man, not the schnauzer's owner, came up to me and started to swear at me. 

"What the fuck are you doing here with that dog??"

"It's an off-leash dog park, I'm here socializing her..."

And then he continued to drop f-bombs and curse me out about bringing her there.  I was stunned.  In all the months I have been taking Riley there, I have never encountered someone like that.  Most of the people I have met there are understanding of the challenges we are dealing with by adopting a shelter dog, and are very supportive of our efforts to socialize her.  I've been told time and again that this is the best place to bring her. 

So now you have the story.  And the lesson? 

The lesson here for me was in not allowing this jerk to pollute me and ruin my day.  I came home and showered away this guy's vile energy - imagining it as a scum on my skin that was being washed away and down the drain.  And now I'm writing about it.  This guy obviously didn't know much about dogs, and obviously had a lot of anger inside to need to unleash it  on me like that (pardon the pun).  I feel sorry for him having to walk through his day with that kind of negativity.  But I'm not going to take that on.  I'm not going to let this ruin what was... I mean what IS going to be a perfectly beautiful day. 

Friday was not such a good day.  With an interrupted and abbreviated sleep the night before, my body was not prepared to be anywhere near "normal", although somehow I expected it should be.

I spent part of the day running errands, and then took myself out for some down time.  I went for a drive in the country and stopped at a greenhouse where I walked around and looked at row after row of bedding plants being grown for sale in the spring.  The smell of dirt and the energy of growing things was lovely.  Then I took myself to a book store where I searched for the perfect escape.

After I had made my purchases, I sat down in the adjoining coffee shop and wrote.  This is what was in my head.

I feel like I shouldn't feel this way.  I should be strong for my husband and my child.  I need to be a pillar for them.  I need to move on with life.  I feel stupid that I feel so numb...I'm supposed to be the strong one!  I have sisu dammit!  I should just keep going!


Is this grief?  I don't feel much - just tired, empty and blank.  I'm not on the verge of tears all the time - I even feel fairly coherent.  But I feel like I'm weighted down.

I tried to push myself through it and finally I gave up.  I took a hot bath with epsom salts and crawled into bed.  And you know what?  When I woke up the next day, I felt better.

So what does this tell me?  It tells me that I'm not as evolved as I would like to think sometimes.  I still have it in my head that as the woman of the family I am responsible for everyone else's feeling.  I'm not.  I can't process their feelings for them anymore than I can heal a cut or a scrape for them.  I can help clean the wound, put a band-aid on it and give them a kiss, but I can't heal it for them.  I also need to remind myself that I am allowed to have feelings of my own.  I'm so concerned with everyone else and how they're handling things that I sometimes forget that I've suffered a loss as well.  You know what else it tells me?  That it isn't always valuable to push ourselves.  Sometimes the limits we feel are limits we should listen to.   

In the void

So I pray for calm and then when calm comes....I have no idea what to do with myself.  Isn't that just typical.

A massive change has just happened and we're still all in transition - and I think shock.  The flowers from the funeral are still blooming in my living room, and I'm wondering about what's coming next.

Not just what bad things are coming (I'm not that pessimistic), but what positive changes might be on their way as well.

I'm antsy.  Maybe I don't really want this to sink in fully, I'm not sure.  The thing we all feared would happen has now actually happened and there's a void there now.  There's a void in the fabric of my life and my family, and a void internally - in my own mind.  A concern that was ever present is no longer there. 

I don't know what to do with that void.  I want to fill it immediately, with life, with work...with something.  To be in it feels awkward - like I'm still holding my breath in anticipation.  I feel uncomfortable.  I should be doing something.  What should I be doing?  I'm trying to anticipate what comes next, but I don't know. 

I'm tired and yet I can't sit still.  I'm not ready to be back at work yet, but I don't know what to do with myself at home.  I feel like I've been stopped in my tracks, sort of like I'm frozen in a moment in time and I don't know how to respond to the stillness.  There's a pause before my life continues on its way, and I am holding my breath instead of breathing into it. 

Landmines

Grief is a sneaky and unpredictable thing.  I've heard it described as a landmine, and I think that is so apt.

You're walking along, thinking things are okay, and then....KABOOM!!  It hits you and you are shaken and blown into a million scattered pieces. 

I started my day today thinking that we would get back into our routines.  My daughter would go to school, my husband to work, and I to teach my students tonight.  I felt like I had cried and grieved with the family and that my heart was at peace and I was ready to move on.

Riiiiight.

I had a long talk on the phone with a girlfriend this morning and worked through a few things, then I drove my husband to work and we talked some more, and then I took my dog out for a walk.  Here's where I should have suspected that something wasn't quite right.  First, I couldn't decide where to walk her.  Nothing seemed appealing.  Then, I felt weary, deep in my bones.  I brushed it away and decided it would do me good to get some fresh air.

The sun was bright and the sky was clear.  The snow was melting into little rivers flowing down into the drains in the pavement.  I could hear birds singing, and yet I felt like my bones were made of stone.  "Keep walking" I told myself.  "The sun will revive you."  But every step made me feel more and more tired.

I finished my walk and returned home to prepare for my work.  I made a cup of tea and sat down to work on some student evaluation forms.  At one point, I realized that I wouldn't be finished them for tonight, so I put them aside and started to collect my teaching materials and get myself ready to leave.  I had a hard time trying to figure out what I needed to do first.  Which books did I need?  What was I going to wear?  Did I need to do my hair?  I wandered back and forth from room to room not really knowing what I was doing.  Then I got a text.  "Mom, I'm not feeling well.  I need my mom."

I know I am not the first parent, nor will I be the last parent, to have to deal with a sick or grieving child while still holding down a job, but this text message, and the series of texts back and forth after it, sent me into a tailspin.  And then...KABOOM. I stepped on the landmine.

As I stood in my studio desperately trying to get my head to work, the explosion happened and the tears started to flow.
 

"Great..."  I thought.  "How am I supposed to work in this state?"

So I called a dear friend and said ""What do I do?"

His response?  "You know what to do."

And I did know what I wanted to do, what I had to do, I just didn't want to do it.

I called into work in tears and explained that I wouldn't be in tonight and could they please contact all of my students.  I felt like a jerk.  Not only was I not going to be there, I gave very little notice, and left the job of calling my students to the receptionist at the school.  Probably not in her job description.  I felt that I'd let everyone down.

Guilt is a horrible feeling.  So is feeling trapped between a rock and a hard place.  Either I disappoint my students or I disappoint my family.

Then I called another friend.  (I have amazing friends by the way!)  Again, I was in tears.  "I feel like an asshole!" I said.

This was basically her response.  "You are not an asshole.  Stop saying that.  You are grieving.  And your feelings of guilt at this situation are because you are a conscientious person.  Stop beating yourself up.  When you're eighty-five years old and on your deathbed, you won't even remember those people that you worked for at the school, but you will remember your family.  So focus on what and who is important and be gentle with yourself."

I'm trying.  I don't know how to do this.  What I want is to just buck up and be strong for everyone else, but I can't.  I have to go through this to get to the other side where I hope I will find my strength.  And when I find that, then I think I will be able to be strong for my family.  I hope.

Today we said farewell to my mother-in-law in an emotional, funny, touching, soulful and uplifting ceremony. 

It's difficult to put into words my experience in that hall in North Edmonton today.  No matter what your religious or spiritual beliefs I think it is right to say that God/Great Spirit/Creator was there today.  That hall was filled with so much love and genuine caring that I felt it wrap around me and enfold me like a cozy blanket.  

I am so grateful to have been a part of it.

Many years ago when my mother-in-law was living with us in Vancouver and looking after our daughter, she told me that she wanted me to sing at her funeral.  "I want you to sing the Pie Jesu."  It's a stunningly simple piece from a Requiem Mass written by Gabriel Faure.  After her passing, as the family was discussing what to do at her funeral, my husband brought it up that this was her wish.  And from that moment on it had been a question mark hanging over my head.  Should I sing?  Will I be ABLE to sing?  I want to sing, but what if I can't do it?  This morning when I got to the hall, I felt it in my bones and deep in my core that I needed to sing.  Not just to fulfill a promise, but simply because it was something I needed to do.

Now you have to understand that I haven't truly sung in two years - not since before we moved back to Edmonton.  The last time I sang was in the summer of 2010 and aside from demonstrating vocal exercises to my students, I haven't sung since.  The occasional ditty in the shower perhaps, but not "real" singing.

So today I sang, and I poured my heart into that song.  It was a powerful experience.   

As we were driving home today after the funeral and I was ruminating about the day and my experience of it, I started to cry.  At our last visit together, just her and I, she told me she thought that her son and I were going to "strike it big".  She believed in us.  I don't know if she was right, but today as I sang for her I reconnected with a part of myself that had been lying dormant for a couple of years and it was "big".  Out of all this sadness and loss I am so grateful for this powerful and profound experience.  Somehow, even though I didn't know it, it was as if she seemed to know that singing was what I'd need.  Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, singers gotta sing.  

If she could have chosen, I think she would have happily married her son to an Aboriginal woman, not because of a disdain for other cultures, but because the truth is that there are ways of being and doing that one takes for granted when you are around others that share your culture.  There is an ease in not having to explain things.  But she got me instead - a white woman of Scandinavian heritage.  So she shared her culture with me and she and I bonded over our shared values for social justice, political awareness and the deep belief in the ongoing struggle for women's equality.  I believe that these shared values went a long way towards bridging that culture gap. 

In my culture, we have a word - Sisu.  It is an important and defining characteristic of the Finnish people.  It's hard to define but I have a coffee cup with the following words on it that I think define it quite well:

  

Persistence, stubbornness, determination, perseverance, guts, courage, spirit, resolve, tenacity, and steadfastness.    

My mother-in-law had all of these attributes in spades. Perhaps that's another reason her and I connected so well and understood each other. 

So although I return home after today's ceremony feeling spent and wrung out, I am also uplifted and I feel very blessed to have been surrounded by the love and emotional support of a warm and closely knit family - both my husband's and my own.  And I'm so glad to have known this formidable and fantastic woman.  I will miss her so very much.