Speaking of the heart

 

Somewhere, at some time in my life, I heard or read the words The heart has no concept of time. Those words became a ripple of change within me and my perspective on everything changed. Perhaps for the better.

And when it comes to loss and the grief that accompanies it, I came to grasp a deeper meaning of those words. 

Especially last April, when it came time to let go of my horse, Duke. In late March he went into respiratory distress; I immediately took him to his vet, Dr. Dave, who diagnosed Duke with heaves and prescribed a month-long round of Dexamethasone (a corticosteroid) applied topically to his pelleted feed. I tried everything to heal him, soaking his hay in water to remove dust, removing all bedding from his stall. I clipped his long shaggy Cushing's related coat around his vital organs hoping on the warmer days it would bring some relief. Nothing helped him. I was hoping for a miracle. There was nothing further Dr. Dave could do, and so, after speaking to veterinarians at Washington State University, I came to terms with the fact that the time had come for me to make a quality-of-life decision on Duke's behalf. Since that day, just the thought of him, or when a social media memory of him pops up, the flood of emotions flows. 

Duke crossed over at mid-morning on April 28, 2023, seven days shy of his 28th birthday.

I am grateful for every moment I had with him. I am eternally grateful for his existence in my life. I am grateful for the fifteen years we had together; those memories are sacred to me. Duke was the gift I always dreamed of but never expected. 

Duke and I, August 20, 2011

Duke, March 21, 2023 with his hair clipped.

 Farewell, until we meet again...

I will remember you...

Long after your hoofprints have faded from this Earth,

Because they are forever imprinted...

On my heart.

I hold you close within my heart

And there you will remain...

To walk with me throughout my life

Until we meet again.

About Duke, part 1

 It's been almost five weeks since our last moments together. I have thought about writing this entry so many times, and yet when I sit down to write, my emotions take over and I feel overcome with so much grief, I get so bound up inside that nothing comes out. 

But I'm going to keep writing.

Where do I begin?

I had plans for this month. To celebrate his 28th year on earth on May 4, to celebrate his 15th anniversary Gotcha Day on May 17th. With him. As it turned out, I celebrated those dates without him. On April 28, I took Duke, my beloved and beautiful Morgan gelding, my first horse, my friend, confidant, teacher, and equine partner on his last trailer ride.

But, let's go back to when it all began. I don't know how old I was when this undying devotion to horses began; it seems it's always been who I am. In my younger days I met several horses, but there was one horse who holds a special place in my heart. He was a plain bay with no white grade gelding named Pee Wee. And he needed a friend. His owner, a new mom, no longer had time to devote to him as her attention turned to caring for her newborn daughter. I was a horse crazy girl, lonely and more than happy to ride my bike for the 45 minutes to spend time with him. I lived in Sepulveda, Pee Wee lived in Canoga Park. 

Even now, I recall with clarity those days, those moments and how Pee Wee greeted me when I arrived on my bike at his pasture. All I wanted was to be in his company, just watching him graze filled me with wonder and delight. Any time I would stand on his manger or a fence rail, he always came to me, offering his back and I'd hop on. No bridle, no saddle...just Pee Wee and I. He was so gentle, just calmly walking around the pasture, stopping every now and then and nibble on a weed. I was in heaven, and he never gave me cause for worry or concern about my safety. I only rode him with tack once, and that was to take him out of the pasture on a walk about through the neighborhood. Then everything changed with my parent's separation, and mom's decision to move back to her hometown a thousand miles away. I was 15 and thought about Pee Wee every day.

Fast forward 36 years later. It's May 17, 2008 and I'm standing in front of a beautiful bay, no white Morgan gelding named Duke. I felt an immediate connection with him; at the first sight of him my heart leapt. That first time I saw him in a photo, and now standing with me...in those two moments I felt like I was looking at the soul of Pee Wee. I know his owner, Keith, was hesitant to sell Duke to a first-time horse owner with zero experience owning horses, let alone caring for one with a history of laminitis. I remember everything about the day Duke came into my life, including the hug I gave Keith before we drove away with Duke in the trailer. It took 45 minutes to get Duke loaded, but he finally did with time and persuasion from Keith. Duke didn't want to leave his home, and I felt that. Yet our destinies were intertwined. Duke and I were fated to be in each other's life.

Meeting Duke and passing the sniff test.

Catching myself

Monday, September 19, 2022, came and like every year before, I let it go; but not before marking it with a few minutes spent in silent vigil remembering you.

Privately.

No post on social media announcing to everyone what Monday meant to me, mainly because very few people within my social media circle ever met you. Most everyone I know today have no idea who you were, so why should I expect them to care when there was never any connection between you and them? But mostly because on the night you left, and in the days that followed, no one reached out to comfort me. No one. From that experience I began to realize the truth in the words you always told me..."Be your own best friend, because the only person you can ever depend on, is yourself."

I always wondered why a mother would tell that to her daughter. Today I know it was because that was your reality, it is what you knew. You knew that people can only love and support others to the extent of the love and support they received in the past. You were trying to protect me from ever knowing the pain you felt. Did it work? Sometimes. But then there are the times I found myself longing for someone to be there, to catch me when I fell. Today I can tell you I have mastered the art of catching myself when I fall; but truth be told, sometimes I wish I had a safe place to land outside of myself.

There are days when I wonder. I wonder what you would think about the world today. I wonder how you would behave on social media. I wonder if you would even be on social media. I wonder if all the advice and wisdom you handed down to me during my formative years of childhood would be any different today if you had experienced more decades of your life. I wonder what your face would look like, gazing upon the face of your grandchild, or great grandchild.

It's been 44 years since you left us. Yet on days like this, it feels like only yesterday.

Of all the things you gave me mom, it is your smile I treasure the most. It is the one thing I vow no one will ever take from me.

Moments in memories

Went in a different direction with writing this weekend. This moment in my life wouldn't leave me alone.

I've been thinking about writing this for weeks. Another memory hidden deep, prodding me from within. Wanting out, boiling in my mind. I know what to do when words boil in my mind. Only release will ease the pressure of their presence. Never before have I shared this with anyone, until now.

Today (Aptil 19) would have been my uncle Dick’s 81st birthday. I miss the sound of his belly laugh.

The last night my father was alive on this earth, I was there with him. And so was my uncle. I shared that night with these two men…in a room filled with love. A love so great, so profound, with a depth and fierceness that neither time nor human could vanquish.

That night I drifted restlessly, floating somewhere between the threshold of alertness and the vacuity of sleep. Bitterly aware of the slipping of time, the emotional fracture of loss about to snap like a summer twig on a forest floor. Laying on a cot placed at the foot of my father's hospital bed, I spent the hours of that night, listening to my uncle’s soft melodic voice…recounting a million and one memories. A lifetime of recollections. The breath of final goodbyes.

A night I shall carry within the power of my heart forever.

From the time dad was admitted to the hospital two weeks prior, the days passed in a blur. Each day started at 5:00 am so I could be at the hospital by 6:00 am, gathered with family and friends. Around 11, I left the hospital and went to work for several hours. Work was both a needed distraction and a necessity caused by timing. Cancer doesn’t give proper notice to allow family members time to rearrange the priorities in their lives. I’d stay at work three or four hours each day, then drive back to the hospital where I remained until 10 or 11 at night. Several of us took turns spending the night with dad; between my step-mother, sisters, brother and a brother-in-law, someone was always with him. On those nights when it wasn’t my turn to stay, I’d drive home, go to bed for several hours, then get up at 5 the next day and do it all over again.

Looking back now, I don’t know how I did it. But that’s the thing about moments like this in your life when you find yourself someplace you never thought you’d be. Without thinking, without preparation, you shift yourself into drive and do what has to be done. That’s just the way it is.

And so, as it came to be that Saturday night, it was my turn to stay. By all rights, I should have been exhausted that night. But what sleep I had came in short moments of drowsy submission. Stubbornly refusing to give in, I held tight to my consciousness, not wanting to miss a single second of the interchange between these two brothers. It was the most beautiful heartbreaking passage of my life.

When everyone had gone home, I took my place at dad’s bedside, with uncle Dick standing on the other side, holding dad’s hand, and tenderly stroking the top of dad’s head. A brother’s touch. No longer lucid, his eyes dim and hollow, dad laid on this bed, unable to speak or move. I felt weary, numb, and it must have been close to midnight when I decided to lay down and convinced myself to sleep so dad and my uncle could have this time together without me hovering. When I pulled my feet from the floor and finally laid down, I felt a heaviness lifted from my shoulders as I slipped down, under the covers on the cot, slowly lulled by the sound of my uncle’s soft whispers lifting the heavy curtain of silence.

From my place at the foot of the bed, I felt the love pouring from my uncle’s heart into my father’s ear. Words so soft and sweet, they both filled my heart with joy and tore it apart, all at once. Boyhood memories flowing through every slow and tender stroke of my uncle’s fingers, recapturing minutes and hours long since passed, held tight and woven in the time and space of these two brothers. It was like listening to a song without end.

I tried to sleep that night, to give my uncle some private time. Yet every time I felt myself relax and drift off, just as I was about to surrender, the rise and fall of my uncle’s voice pulled me away, like a heartfelt violin concerto. A few times I lifted myself up from the cot just enough to see their two figures. Dick holding dad’s hand in his right, his left hand on dad’s head, sometimes gently caressing, and sometimes just cupped at the back of his head. Leaning over the bed, his lips moving in the rhythmic duty of expressing long lost words of love and family, sharing distant memories of occasions and places, and the faded fragments of time and tribulation.

Laying there, just listening, changed me. It filled me. It broke me. And it mended me.

A brother’s lullaby of love and tenderness. A lifetime captured, contained, and conveyed in a solemn night; two brothers and four walls. At times it was unbearable, and yet in those moments I felt the healing comfort of hope.

Hours passed. I listened. A silent witness to the testimony of one man’s life. At one point I felt a soft human breeze as a nurse walked past me. This was followed by the rustling of blankets as she whispered a good morning to my uncle. My eyes were closed, and it was a moment of semi-consciousness; I felt like I was hanging somewhere between reality and dreams. The rustling stopped abruptly, I heard her say something indiscernible to my uncle. I heard footsteps, then I felt her hand lay gently on my shoulder. I was on my right side, with my back to the bed.

“Dona,” she whispered as she bent over me.

I opened my eyes. “I‘m awake.”

A brief pause, and then, “It’s time. His kidneys shut down. You need to get everyone here…now.”

Without thinking, I nodded and sat up, just as her hand left my shoulder. It was still dark outside. I glanced at my watch. A few minutes after 5. I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, set my feet on the floor and stood up.

It was time to meet this day. All the fragments of time shared between my father and uncle laid heavy in the November morning air. Shaking off the burden of our own lost time, I excused myself, stepped out of the room and walked down the short hall into the waiting room next door to make the calls to summon my family.

Minutes ticked by as I readied myself. By the time I changed out of my sleepwear into my day clothes, folded the sheets and blankets on the cot and placed it out of the way, my sisters and step-mother arrived. Somewhere in the commotion I caught a glimpse of my uncle walking toward the door to leave. I asked if he would stay. With his hand on the door, he looked up at me from across the room and slowly shook his head. Before he turned away, I looked into his eyes and felt the clouds of pain and sorrow bearing the weight of a lifetime on his heart. There was a moment between us, a brief connection of understanding, and then he stepped out into the hall.

With that I released a deep, heavy sigh. I understood. Last night carried it’s own burden, and my uncle needed to lay it down. Someplace other than here, in this room, right here, right now. I took a deep breath, and walked to my father’s bedside, taking my place among the group of four women who would help dad through his final hours of life.

Shortly after 11 that morning, dad released his final breath.