Freedom's Ride

They say only the young have rash moments. You know those times when the laws of physics are still something to be learned about years later in university. Times when your mom is busy in the kitchen, your dad is at work, and you are left to your own devices.

With my big brother, we cut a swath through our parents' patience. There was the time we took the TV apart, literally, when we were 12 years old. Mom was still amazed we didn't electrocute ourselves as she surveyed the CRT, flyback transformer, demodulator, and filters scattered across her clean floor. It was worth the grounding (literally and figuratively). Then, the less physically risky, though not without its own penance. Mom and Dad had an electric blanket with dual controls, something NEW. We reconfigured it so Mom's control operated Dad's side, and vice versa. Mom woke up, "I'm freezing!" and cranked up the heat. Then Dad would say, "I'm hot!" and would crank his side down. It took them two nights to figure it out. Grounded again.

The world was ours to take, living as we did at that age, in advance of adulthood, when life knows no pauses and has no fear of what the future brings. I'm not sure when it changed. Mom's cancer was turning terminal, the splash of cold water against the bow of our lives, her death in her late 50s, that shadow line that marked the official end of that unfettered road.

I can't say I didn't do anything rash again; every fork in the road has its own seduction, but everything was tinged with the mark of mortality, the portent of possible loss. If you don't love hard, you won't be hurt, you think, reconciling yourself to the life of a gregarious loner.

40-some years later, with as many lessons of loss etched on my heart as there were marks in my logbook, I embarked on what was the rashest decision of all. A tattoo? You say. No. A change of job, residence, or last name? Certainly not. No, it was a decision made one night, Lorelei, our last rescue, having been diagnosed with an aggressive soft tissue sarcoma. We took her to the best Veterinary oncologist in all of Chicagoland, whatever the expense. They went in to see what could be done, but it was inoperable; she wouldn't have survived any attempt to remove the embedded mass. While she waited to come out of recovery, a dash was made to a local thrift store to obtain an extra-soft baby blanket, which would provide her with some extra warmth and comfort on the long drive home.

We took her home to make her remaining days as joyful and pain-free as possible, when the notice came in from the Rescue group that we had adopted her from. They had a young yellow Lab with an orthopedic defect that might need the "doggie elevator" my husband had made for Lorelei. Honey Bee was her American Kennel Club name. She was 10 months old, from an Amish Breeder who had released her when it became apparent she couldn't be sold due to markedly bowed front legs. Poor nutrition? Genetics? Growing up in a small pen for 10 months in a barn?" We don't know, and didn't ask; all we knew was they had the good hearts to take her some distance to a well-known rescue that would find her the right home.

So, with a thumbs up from EJ (who, honestly, would probably say yes if I asked to buy a tank), we brought her home. A PUPPY. What was I thinking? I'm 66 years old, still working, and I've now got an overgrown puppy with NO training, NO socialization, and the urgent energy of a 40-pound Velociraptor on Crack (with puppy teeth to match). Add in a husband who can be on the road 2-3 weeks a month, and there was a moment I almost called and said, "wait, I change my mind", but like that moment when that first labor pain starts, there's no calling it off.

Her first night was great; she had some cuddle time with Lorelei and her new mom and dad, and then slept next to EJ as he lay on the futon beside her. As he waved to leave for work the next morning, I thought, "I can do this!"

It was the calm before the storm. I likened it to those long, late flights overseas, when storms were forecast but not yet visible, the engines humming in a drowsy sky, senses alert but not fully engaged in the fatigue. On such nights, the few stars above cast their touch upon our aircraft, shafts of light penetrating a sky that was turning from clear to the blackened soot of nearby fire. The massed clouds all around would have had a singular significance of effect, had we been able to see them ahead. But the aircraft's radar was not yet painting any threat. You sensed it was there, but with no hint of the direction from which it would come, the nearing of a menace, feeling like it was coming from all and every direction. Then that first spray would hit the window as your radar screen lit up with what looked like the big red dot on a 7-Up beverage can.

I remember the first sharp expression of small puppy teeth in my flank; she had discovered that people have bottoms, and they are biteable. Ouch! It really didn't hurt that bad through my jeans, but the surprise came out in my voice, and she thought it was a game. The next thing I knew, she was running and jumping off the recliner, launching herself at the couch like one of the Flying Wallendas, knocking over a plant in the process, while Lorelei looked on, taking notes.

The typhoon had arrived, and I named her "Sunny."  Phonetically, it was close enough she responded immediately, yet avoiding the whole standing out on the porch at 6 am shouting at her in the yard while EJ loaded up his car for work, "Honey, NO, not the rabbit poop" or "Honey, NO! NO, don't lick that!" The neighbors would be calling the authorities (or the local sanitarium).

Lorelei was overjoyed to have a friend, and Sunny played with her surprisingly gently, then lay protectively nearby when Lorelei slept frequently in those last weeks with us. Bittersweet scenes to view, as it was impossible to see without that sense of unavoidable finality. The quietness as they slept came over me like a forecast of abrogation, that pause before the heart ceases to beat like a rundown timepiece.

The coming months were marked by continued mayhem, including stolen tools and shoes, shredded rolls of paper towels taken from the counter, as well as one late-night trip to the Vet when a dew claw was torn in the Zoomie to end all Zoomies. There were laughs, tears, and many days I would have gladly dispensed myself of the regrettable opportunity of "guess what gross thing I have in my mouth, Mom?"

We had a local dog walker who came by as needed, especially when we were working, playing with her, and teaching her the skills we were slowly building with her daily. But I'd still come home, approaching her crate like it was the den of some wild beast, with bravery but some bluster. I'd open the door while singing the notes of "Ride of the Valkyries", and our evening would commence, measured not in hours but by the kinetic energy of flying fur.

But, as with any storm, the skies clear, the winds calm, at least in the land of Puppy-Ville. It was during those last weeks before retirement that we faced one of our largest challenges, both intellectually and emotionally, on the job in several years. The loss of life was immense, the senselessness of it all, a bitter taste on my tongue as I worked late into the night. I'd learned long ago, my first official assignment after the earth shook in Pennsylvania on 9-11, that there was no point in asking "Death, where is thy sting?" as you stand before a vast, smoking hole in the ground. The images that day, 24 years ago, pursued me home, making sleep impossible without a strong shot of Single Malt.

But having put that bottle away years ago, I learned to take comfort as the shadows gathered again, with the little things of joy I had around me. In those last weeks, badge still in my pocket, regret in my fingers, I learned to appreciate the simple pleasure of a young dog. For she was once as I was, living in advance of an end she will not fear coming, because she doesn't conceive of its existence, that beautiful continuity of joy that knows no limits and no introspection.

I wouldn't have traded this decision for anything. - Brigid