A Shoe Full of Slush

This year, the Spring Equinox is on March 20, a mere 9 days away. I wish I was excited about that, but I'm just not. In fact, I don't really care much for Spring. It is kind of an indistinguishable season here in Florida. The weather is warming up, but after a a mere six weeks of on-and-off chilly weather with a few cold days sprinkled in, its not really something that I look forward to. Plus, Spring means it is almost summer, and although school break is glorious, it comes along 100 degree temperatures, and 100% humidity. I don't do a massive spring cleaning, or really anything special when spring gets here. School is not ending or starting. Nothing really significant is going on in my life. Spring comes and goes without me really giving it much thought at all.

But I remember Spring. Somewhere, in the foggy, recesses of my mind I remember when Spring was all that we thought about. I remember people talking about whether or not The Groundhog saw his shadow, and hoping for an early Spring so that we could bring on the snow melting, and the trees budding. Budding trees, so adorable, coming alive with their little promises of an end to the near black and white colorlessness of winter. I remember actual Spring Cleaning. It was the time when Dad got the screens out from the cellar, and we took the Storm door down from the front entrance. We would hose off the screens and put them in the windows- a sign that warm weather and open windows were near. I also remember slush!

Slush is snow's alter-ego. It is brownish, or almost gray looking, because it is filled with dirt. Dirt that came from sand and salt from the city trucks covering the streets to make the roads safer, stuff snow plows scraped up while clearing the streets, from the cars driving by, and from people walking through it. Slush is gross. It sneaks into shoes, and splashes on pant legs. People romanticize snow. Heck, I romanticize snow. Lovely, puffy flakes, falling from the sky. Coating the world in a pure, clean layer of luminous, icy beauty. But, with Spring comes warmer weather. The icicles, three inches in diameter, start to melt and fall like daggers to the earth and the snowy dream world goes away. No one would romanticize slush, but even slush and threat of impalement from ice daggers cannot destroy Spring.

Spring means promise. It means the end of the freezing cold, and the high heat bills. It means no more shoveling, scraping the windshield, snow blowing, or bundling up. The days begin to get longer, and it stays light past 5pm for the first time in months. That feeling of the burden of winter begins to lift because "Spring is in the air". Life just feels more manageable, and doable, and hopeful. I miss that. That feeling that, though the world looks dirty and slushy, there is beauty blooming beneath the surface. It can be felt. What does it feel like? Well, like "whistling, even when your shoe is full of slush"!

Happy Spring everyone! Maybe we don't feel a giant shift in the weather, or the daylight hours where we live. But let's embrace Spring anyway. Make it a time of new beginning. Be reminded to be refreshed, and to hope in the the unseen beauty in our own lives. Even if we can't see it, and even if our lives seem a little slushy at the moment. Take heart. Let's open up the windows of our souls, and feel the breeze. Spring is the air!

"Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush".
~ Greg Larson

The Goodness of a Dog

I think it is time for me to write about the goodness of a dog. Not just the general worth of a dog, or the possibility of goodness that dogs can bring. This is the goodness of my former best friend, and the first living thing that ever really needed me, my dog Max.

Max's life story is interesting from the start. When she was 8 weeks old she was living in the house of a bunch of sorority girls who were feeding her soup and calling her Snickers, as sorority girls would. Jayme and I were at a college soccer game, sitting on a blanket on the sidelines, when she came walking past on the end of a little red leash. I overheard the girl that was walking her say that she didn't think they could keep her, but wasn't she cute? I didn't know anything about this girl except for that her name was Anna, and that I had seen Jayme talk to her before. I told him we should take the dog!

Jayme, in his usual take-care-of business manner, let Anna know that he would take the dog if she couldn't. He set up a time to go to the house to see her, which resulted in our awareness of her name and less than ideal soup diet. The next thing we knew, Max, the puppy formerly known as Snickers, was ours. I use the word "ours" loosely. Technically, she was Jayme's. He had the apartment, and I lived in the dorm, so she lived with him. In addition, he had the money, and I lived on peanut butter an jelly and pop tarts, so he paid for her shots, dog bed, food, and basically everything that her survival required. She may have lived with him and needed his financial backing, but in my heart,she was mine.

I was the one that named her Max. It is ranked like #1 in dog names, but she was a girl, so that made it unique. Plus, it fit her. I could have named her Sasha, or Sadie, but if Max was a person, she would have been the starting pitcher on a boy's little league team, or the only girl on the soccer team. She would have laughed in the faces of the Sashas and Sadies of the world. When they were running from bugs and being too full for dessert, she would have been killing spiders with her shoe and eating a full course meal. Her eyes gave her away- so full of mischief and spirit! And we could see her spunk even at ten pounds. She would give these mean, sideways glances at her rope toy and squeaky pink sneaker-glances that told me she needed a tough girl name. It had to be Max.

She was precious as can be too! Little tiny pink tongue that would like my face all over if I would let her. Mostly she just settled for my hands when she could sneak a lick in, and licking the tears from my cheeks when I was too sad to stop her. I know, I was 19 and way too young to be sad. But I was a also girl living 17 hours from home, missing my family, and juggling a Biology major with playing basketball, friend issues, self-esteem issues, love issues...there were plenty of opportunities for her to "dry" my tears.

I have so many favorite memories with Max. My favorite college memory was when Jayme, Max, and I went camping on this little mountain in Chattanooga. Jayme, having access to some money at the time, went and bought a tent, lantern, and some basic camping supplies; the most notable of which was this sleeping bag that was rated as being warm enough for -32 degrees! We were in Tennessee, and it was not that cold. It seemed like a ridiculous purchase to me, plus, I had no money. Jayme did offer to buy me one, but when I saw the price tag I declined, opting instead to bring some quilts and blankets from my dorm room. We went camping with some other people, and of course stayed up late by the campfire talking and roasting marshmallows, but in the early morning hours went to our brand spanking new tent to go to sleep. I remember that when we unzipped the zipper to go into the tent, his shiny brand new sleeping bag shined in the night. It was really nice. I could almost hear the angels singing. He climbed in, zipped up his bag, and I snuggled up in my blankets. As I tried to sleep on top of that mountain, the temperature took a dive! I don't know how cold it got, but I know that I was freezing! As I lay there on the cold ground shivering in my little cotton quilts I looked over at Jayme, in his sleeping bag rated safe for use in the North Pole, and I honest to God saw a little bead of sweat on his forehead. In that moment, I think I hated him just a little. I asked him if we could switch for a little while. I even asked if I could get in with him, forget dignity at this point, or the appearance of evil, I just wanted to live! That's when he said it, the line that he will never live down for as long as we live, "Sorry, it's a one man bag". I was a twenty year old, sweet, innocent girl-child so at that point I guessed that I had to respect that. I had seen the label myself, it really was a one man bag. Thank God we brought Max. I pulled her over under my ice cold cotton quilts, and snuggled with her all night long. I am surprised she lived. I think she warmed my body by at least 20 degrees which means I was probably sucking the life right out of her, but she didn't mind. She didn't say "no sharing", or even remind me that her fur was really just meant for her. She snugged with me, and kissed me, and let me use her like a big brown pillow. My best friend.

Max had an adventurous life. She lived in a one bedroom studio apartment and got walks in the mulch by the plants when we first saved her from a life as sorority- mascot, Snickers. Then, Jayme moved to a farm where she had acres to run and play, and another dog on the property to frolic with. When we moved to Maine after we got married, Max was in her hay day. She had always had a thick brown coat but had never put it to good use before, other than saving my life on a cold Tennessee mountain once. Seeing her in the cold though, I realized that she had that glorious fur for a reason. In Maine, she came alive! She loved going out in the snow. She would run and jump and stick her muzzle way down deep in the snow until she sneezed, and snow would fly up all around her. She would run with her mouth wide open, and it looked like she wore the biggest smile on her face! She loved walks on the beach. She would dance on the sand with her feet in the water, and would run and jump into the cold, salty ocean at Ferry Beach and paddle out to retrieve whatever we threw...a tennis ball, or stick. She seemed to go so slow, and she would hold her head up really high to not get water on her face. I wasn't sure that she was having any fun at all, until she would get back to shore with her treasure and go crazy running and rolling around in the sand. Just seeing how little things made her happy, made me happy. She made me appreciate the small things, which is quite a mighty thing for a small dog to do.

After we moved to Florida, Max was with me during the hardest three months of my life. I was really sick, to the point of needing home health care, and Max never left my side. When Jayme or his mom would come get her to take her out back to play, or go for a walk, she would look up at me with these eyes that seemed to be asking if it was OK with me. I sang a lot of songs during those months, and Max seemed to enjoy them. She would lick my hand in encouragement as it dangled over the side of the bed, and sometimes would even jump up on the bed and lay alongside me like my missing puzzles pieces. She fit just right, and provided the weight and rhythmic breathing that I needed to rest, and sometimes even sleep. I never knew a more loyal friend.

Max was 14 years old when we finally had to put her to sleep. I never would have been able to do it, were it not so obvious that she needed to go. She had had a couple of mini strokes earlier that year, but seemed to recover fully from them. She never stopped enjoying her walks, and other than being deaf and an occasional bathroom accident, had an unaffected life. Then one morning, she had a full blown stroke. She fell down and could not get up, and her head was tilted to the side in a strange way that she could not control. She kept trying to stand, but just couldn't. I cried. I picked her up in my arms, all 52 pounds of her, and carried her out back. I layed down next to her in the grass and tried to calm her- she seemed afraid. "It's OK Maxi. You're my best girl. Mommy is here with you. I love you, and you are alright". She was trying to lick me. Maybe she knew I was afraid too.

I kept waiting to see if it would pass, and if she would be alright, but her eyes were different. They had lost their spark, and their shine. The mischief that I loved so much was gone, and I knew things were about to get really tough. It was a Saturday morning, but our vet was open. We called and asked to bring Max in. When the lady on the phone asked why, I remember telling her, "I think my dog is dying". I got the car ready for her while Jayme gave her a bath. She hated baths, but she was a proud girl, and she would not have wanted to be seen in her current state. She was covered in pee, and dirt, and grass, and that is no way for the "best girl" to go out. We cleaned her up, and put her in the back of the jeep on a nice soft quilt. We put the seats down and I rode with her in the back - holding her head, and singing to my girl. It was my turn to be a friend now. In all of ours years together, I was never the one by her side. I was always walking away...to go back to the dorm, to work, on a date with Jayme, or to visit a friend, always knowing that she would be there for me when I got home. Now, she was walking away from me, but I was going to see her to the door.

Dr. Jones confirmed that this had been a bad stroke, and if we did not put her down, she would die soon enough on her own. That putting her to sleep would be kinder, as what she felt now was probably very unsettling to her, and confusing. He had been her vet for almost ten years, and knew her well, so he performed a bit of a service for her as she lay on the cold silver vet's table that she had always hated so much. His words were sweet, beautiful and awful, and the hardest things I ever had to hear. He gave her a shot that helped her fall asleep before he actually euthanized her, and I stayed with her through that. I talked to her and patted her face until she fell to sleep. She looked so peaceful. In her old age, she loved to sleep more than anything, and she was even snoring like she had always done on her green, plaid dog bed in the kitchen. I kissed her sweet little head, and left the room. Jayme stayed by her side until the end, but I needed to leave with the picture of her sleeping in peace.

Now, three years later, Max lives on with me. I have pictures of her, of course, and I tell stories of her to Taryn at bedtime. Her name is in almost all of my computer passwords in some form or another, and, of course, the answer to that security question on various websites, "what was the name of your first pet?". Max taught me so much- about love, happiness, enjoying the moment, being thankful for small things, and always waiting faithfully for the ones you love. I had pets before Max, and pets after Max. But Max was my soul-mate pet. She was the one who I loved to the core, and who I always trusted. I felt like she could defend me from harm, and be trusted with my deepest secrets. She never failed me, hurt me, gave me a dirty look, or ignored my calls. She was really, almost perfect; a super hero, minus the cape. It seems silly to people who aren't dog people, or pet people, or worse...are cat people. I know that, and I even think I understand. That's the thing about love though. Until you experience it, you can never really understand when you hear others talk about it. And that's OK. I really, truly, miss my friend, Max. I don't know if all dogs go to heaven, but if there can only be one up there, then it should be Max. I'm certainly going to whistle her tune when I get there, and I hope she comes running!