When the love of a dog takes the pain away

Pain. It can be described in so many ways. A physical suffering. An emotional suffering. Or even a laborious effort that sometimes goes unnoticed. No matter the way you feel it, it’s real, and it’s in everyone.

I went in to the doctor for a female procedure yesterday, and the cramping it causes, is painful. Not so painful that I walk hunched over like an old man with weights in his pockets, but a pain nonetheless. An uncomfortable one that has mentally talked me into not going to work. This pisses SS off to no end, but ultimately it’s my decision, and when it comes to my body, I’m the boss. No matter what.

This handsome, freshly groomed Poodle, is the best bed cuddler ever. He sneaks in between SS and I, and when he lays his head on our pillows, we just can’t help but feel our hearts melt. (We only allow this when he is groomed and clean.)
While cuddling this morning, it made me think about the dog I had as a child. She was a Beagle/Lab mix, and saved me a number of times from a bad situation. You see, my Dad would throw his cigarette butts out into the lawn in the backyard when he was done smoking them. Me, not knowing any better and assuming they were okay because my Dad was putting them in his mouth, would find them and put them in MY mouth. That awesome dog, used to take them out of my mouth and lay on them so I couldn’t eat them. Smartest dog ever.

Here’s me with her in the doghouse…..

She really was the best dog ever. We were ALWAYS together.

When I was five, my parents sold their house in the Valley, and moved to a huge 2-story home in a newly developed city called Valencia. You might all know it as the home of Six Flags Magic Mountain. There was very little here at the time, but now, it’s full of cars and people and is ultimately just overcrowded. Definitely not my favorite city anymore.
Not long after moving into that house, the dog somehow hung herself with a leash she was tied off to that afternoon. I can remember coming home from 1st grade and hearing the news. It was heartbreaking for a five-year-old, and the first time I can remember feeling emotional pain.

As the years past, we had other dogs. Labs, German Shepherds, a Cocker Spaniel, and even a Dachshund. And with all those dogs, I never could get close. I never developed a relationship that said we were friends. Sure, I would feed them, and maybe throw a ball once in a while, but didn’t go out of my way to bond with them.

Then I met this guy, and my whole outlook on dogs changed. I never thought a Poodle could steal my heart, but every day when he looks at me with excitement and recognition, my heart flutters and I know it’s true love.

LOVE is a 4-legged word.

 

It sent a shock to my system

“Dad is back in the hospital. Something with his heart…”

Sitting at my desk today, just relaxing because it’s so slow, and iVal makes that familiar text message sound. I slowly slide my finger across the screen to unlock it, trying to be careful not to move the phone and lose the small amount of service that I can get in the canyon, and the message pops up. For the first time since I’ve been working at The Ranch, I said a cuss word that wasn’t directed AT someone.

I was shocked that he was back in the hospital. It seemed like he was doing so well. At least according to what Sis had been telling me. I told her to keep me informed, and I walked out to the truck to take a deep breath. Know what else I did? I pushed all my feelings about religion and God out of my mind for a moment, and laid my head on the steering wheel. I then said an honest, from the heart, prayer. For the first time in years.

Four hours later, I get my first update. Now, to be honest, I’d kind of gone about my day and forgotten about what was going on in the background. I knew that Sis and Squid were headed up to the hospital to see what was happening, but I wasn’t really thinking about it. Until that moment.

Kidneys shut down. He passed out and woke up to them resuscitating him with paddles.

For the first time in 34 years, I cried for my dad because I was scared for him. I sat down in my chair, and the tears were coming whether I wanted them to or not. My mind was telling me one thing, but my heart was aching with such force, the tears wouldn’t stop.

I called Squid immediately and before he could even say hello, I was blurting out, “I hate him sooo much, but I can’t stop crying. What is wrong? Why??”

I’ve been sitting here all night, thinking about nothing else. It’s come down to this….

No matter how I feel about my dad, he’ll never be able to make up for all those horrible years. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that he could say, that would make it better. However, I can’t beat myself up for being sad. He is my dad, after all. And even though most of the time I spent with him over my lifetime, sucked, it didn’t all.

He will just have to die without me

Emphysema - a chronic, irreversible disease of the lungs characterized by abnormal enlargement of air spaces in the lungs accompanied by destruction of the tissue lining the walls of the air spaces.

He’s dying. Doc’s have given him two years.

Sis spent last weekend with Dad. She came home with some very interesting news. Dad, the man I fear most in the whole world, wants to make amends because he’s dying. Hear that? He wants to clear HIS conscience because HE doesn’t want to die with bad feelings between us.

Are you kidding me???

For thirty years, this man tormented my life, and he thinks that if I forgive him and start to talk to him again, it’ll wash away all the horrible memories I have? Does he really think it’ll all go away? Does he think it’ll make things better?

Here are some things I’ve written about him in the past….

http://blogramblings101.blogspot.com/2010/10/getting-to-know-absent-parent_13.html

http://blogramblings101.blogspot.com/2010/05/zip-dee-doo-dah-zip-dee-ay.html

http://blogramblings101.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-remember.html

http://blogramblings101.blogspot.com/2012/01/monster-or-just-sad-man.html

I couldn’t believe he even said those words out loud to Sis. I just can’t.

I think he’ll just have to accept that his actions over the last thirty years, have consequences. And I hope it doesn’t take him two years to realize why.

9/30 Things: List 10 people who have influenced you and describe how.

In no particular order….

RJ: He makes me a better person. He gives me confidence that I can do anything. He makes me feel invincible.

BFF@work: He influences me to relax when I’m not working. He pushes me to enjoy time off and not let things beyond my control, control me.

StepDad: He raised me. Enough said.

JK: He makes me want to be a better girlfriend. ;-)

Sis: She influences me to play with her cats. Even if I don’t want to.

Squid: He influences me to be lazy. He’s one of my favorite people with whom to be lazy.

Mom: She taught me that hard work doesn’t always equal happiness.

Dad: Taught me about the kind of person I don’t want to be. He showed me an example of how unhappy life can be when you push everyone around you away.

Boss#1: He’s taught me the most about money.

DD: She is the one person, that makes me work hardest. She expects the most from me while I’m in the office. She doesn’t allow me to slack off. She is one of my closest friends.

His burgers are the best.

Dad. The person I fear the most in the entire world. I fear being alone with him far more than I fear being alone with a terrorist who wished to rape me. Total fear, I’m telling you.

This fear is brought on by good reason, I assure you, but it’s still a fear I live with nonetheless. The mention of his name, at times, brings tears to my eyes. Painful tears. Tears of unhappiness from being dealt such a shitty Father card at birth. Sometimes when I hear Sis talk about him, I get jealous of the relationship they have. I balled my eyes out at her wedding during the father/daughter dance because I knew there’d never be a chance for him and I to do just that.

For years, I’ve been telling Sis, “Bring me some of Dad’s chicken and hamburgers. They are THE.BEST.” A few days ago, she finally did, but he didn’t know it. While the chicken seemed to have a slight difference in the recipe, the burgers were spot on! She gave me three. I ate three. Three nights in a row. They were exactly like I remembered. I wore a ridiculously large grin on my face as I ate them, because it was so amazingly familiar.

I would love to call him up and say OH MY GOD, DAD! RIGHT ON with the burgers! But I can’t. I won’t. No matter the recognition I think he deserves for always making the best burgers and being perfect with the recipe every time, it’s not worth it. Not to me. Not anymore.

A Monster or just a Sad Man?

It's been a while since I've written about something more important than just a photo a day, so lets chat about my dad.

As far back as I can remember, my Dad has been my biggest fear. When I was little, my mom spent more time protecting me from him than she did herself. This resulted in lots of bruises to her arms and legs, even her face at times.

He was a drunk. A very angry drunk. I specifically remember one morning, when I was in first grade, my Dad had gotten up in the morning and gone directly to the recliner in the living room where he proceeded to drink a few cans of beer while watching something he'd recorded the night before on his fancy new VCR. Me, being the innocent little girl I was, said something along the lines of Don't you have to go to work? You can't go with THAT smell. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to school that day. After my Dad stopped yelling at me to mind my own business, Mom stepped in to once again, protect her little girl. That was the last time I mentioned drinking to my Dad.

A few years later, the divorce that was inevitable, began to haunt me. Dad would try to play me against Mom. By doing so, he shaped me into a vindictive, hurtful person. He taught me that this behavior was okay. Acceptable even. It was years before I was old enough to understand what was happening, and unfortunately, so far into a hole of unhappiness and rage, that digging out wasn't even an option. At the time.

Through the years of every other weekend visits, I managed. There were more bad times than good. The older I got, the more irritated I became at my mother for forcing me to spend the weekends with him. I was unhappy there. I would develop an attitude about everything. I counted down the hours until we would go back home on Sunday evening and didn't care if it hurt his feelings. I had started to develop a shell around myself that I didn't want him to be able to break through or even see through.

Once I was in high school, I had hoped things would be different. I prayed for it to be different. High school was a big deal. It was my first taste of real independence. I looked at this as being a new chance for him to be the "dad" that I actually needed. It was a chance for him to help me deal with real teenage girl stuff. I was on the girls basketball team and in the Choir. We had several games throughout my high school years and a number of different choir concerts. I was excited to invite him to these things. You know, fresh start and all. He came to one concert early in my Freshman year. It was okay. He laughed at us and gave us a hard time about the hideous outfits we wore, but it was all in good fun. Finally! Positivity from Dad.

A few months later, I invited him to one of my basketball games that was going to be at a local high school by his house. A bus ride for us, but just down the street for him. I wasn't the star of the game, but I did manage to put up a few points for the team. I was happy. My coach was happy. The team was happy. Dad wasn't so impressed, and went so far as to tell me that men prefer women that aren't "Amazon Women". That was the last time I invited him to attend one of my games, and the reason I began to pull away once again. :-(

The every other weekend visits became more of a nuisance during my high school years than anything else. I dreaded it even more than I did in years prior because it was taking time away from my friends. I wasn't allowed to make phone calls to my friends while I was visiting with him, so I always felt completely out of touch with what was happening in my important high school social life.

After I graduated from high school, the relationship I had with my mom and step dad wasn’t great. I was 17 and knew it all. I didn't have respect for my parents because I felt they had all ganged up against me. The years of hate I had for my dad, coupled with the irritation I had with my mom and step dad for sending me to Dad's, brought on some pretty heated arguments. At 17 years old, I was asked to leave my parents house.

Because I didn't have anywhere else to go, and staying at a friends house wasn't a positive option, I moved in with my dad. He drove me so far into a fit of rage, that I packed all my stuff up and moved to Texas. Alone. I couldn't take one more second of being around that man, and I knew anything that happened to me in Texas couldn't be as horrible as it currently was. Enough was enough.

When I got married a few years later, people asked me if my parents were going to fly to Texas for it. Mom did. I asked Dad not to. It was a decision I mulled over for weeks, even months. And it was a decision that I made all on my own. And everyone supported that decision. When RJ was born, The X was in school full time and I didn't have any other family around to help. I gave in to my dads request to come visit solely based on the assumption that I would need help.

When The X and I split for the second and final time a few years later, I was found without a place to go. The police made sure I stayed away from what I had already comfortably called home, so I made a desperate phone call to my dad. "Can I come stay with you?" I whispered into the phone. There was no hesitation in his voice. He said yes without even thinking about it. I was determined to have a relationship with my dad, no matter what I had to do.

I tried. I honestly tried. I even had RJ visiting on the weekends hoping they would develop a relationship. Then the night came when Dad had RJ pinned down on the ground, choking him. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. RJ, being all of about five years old, didn't want to eat the spinach Dad had made. No surprise, cause I wouldn't eat that crap either. I leave the room for two freakin' minutes, and I come back to RJ balling his eyes out, choking on spinach he'd been trying to chew, all while being choked. Oh My God! I did a LOT of screaming, Dad got up, and RJ went and hid in the bedroom closet while I packed some clothes. I called my mom to come pick us up, and off we went. I think she got there in record time. I did not allow RJ to be around my dad after that. And it wasn't until Sis's wedding last April, that they saw each other. And naturally, the first thing RJ said to me when he saw him was, "Do I have to say hi?"

The next couple of years didn't get any better. Finally, in December of '08, I walked away for the last time. I threw my hands up in the air and admitted defeat. He had won. He had bullied me so much, that it finally pushed me away. And I didn't look back. No regrets.

For thirty-two years, I have gone back and forth emotionally, trying to fight the feeling of hate for him. It's my Dad. I'm not supposed to "hate" him. But I do. I did. Because he is a monster. A monster who refuses to fix what's broken. A monster who finds joy in the suffering of another. A monster who will not haunt my dreams anymore.

g’night y’all!

Here fishy, fishy, fishy.

Growing up, we always had a fish tank. The sounds were soothing and seem to put me into a relaxation mode only brought on by running water. (Waterfalls do the same? yes. Running sinks and toilets? Not so much.)

When The X and I moved into our first place, one of the first things we had to do was get a fish tank. It was the smallest of the small, but it didn’t matter. I just needed the relaxation.

When RJ was born, I requested we get a larger fish tank. I knew I was about to undergo a huge life changing event, and having a little bit more of something that helped me relax, was never a bad idea. So larger we went.

When The X and I moved from Texas to California, a fish tank was not something we were going to attempt to bring along. Dad had a big 100-gallon tank, and was more than happy to give it to us. Anything to keep his oldest daughter relaxed and not crabby.

It’s been seven years since I’ve been the owner of a fish tank. Seven long years. I don’t have one in this town to visit. I don’t have friends that have them in their house. And I’m not even sure RM#1 would even allow me to entertain the idea of having one in our house. But eventually, I’ll own another one. It’s just who I am. And maybe it’ll be a really cool one. One built into a divider wall. Or built into my bathroom sink or living room coffee table. Who knows? Just maybe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting to know an absent parent

I can remember sitting in the judges chambers some room at the courthouse at the age of 7 with my sister and mom. I can also remember sitting in the judges chambers some room at the courthouse with my sister and my dad. I remember dad getting down on the floor with us and mom keeping her distance as she watched over us playing alone together. I can remember hearing the man conducting the session say dad plays with the children more. At the time, I just assumed he was thinking out loud as he wrote his notes down, but 24 years later, I’m not so sure. Why did that man say those words out loud? Those six words have run through my mind every single day since. Haunting? Perhaps.

I remember on the drive home from school one day, asking my mom did the judge decide we should live with you or dad? Secretly I was hoping she’d say dad, because I was NOT fond of mom’s new boyfriend, but she didn’t. We were on one of our last drives to the ‘family’ home, and for the first time I can remember, I experienced true sadness. I wanted to cry. Why was someone other than my parents allowed to tell us who we could spend our time with? Why couldn’t we just spend equal amounts of time with each parent? Why, at the age of 7, was I having to think about this stuff, when all I wanted to be doing was comparing sticker books with Doreen and Nicole.
As the weeks, months, and years went on, we saw less and less of dad. He was a ‘weekend father’ and had become sort of a background parent to mom and the boyfriend who had now become “the husband”, AKA: The Stepdad. He very rarely attended events we had (band competitions, basketball games, choir performances, etc), but was it because we had grown so far apart from him that we didn’t invite him or even want him there? Or because we knew he wouldn’t attend? Or was it something completely different? Am I holding a grudge about this for the wrong reason?

As I start to think about what it’ll be like if I get to have weekend visitations with Ryan, I have to admit, I’m scared of one thing, and ONE thing only. He’s 10. Is he already at that point that I had reached with my dad? Has he become so close to his father and so far from me, that he’s already developed a sense to push me away? It doesn’t seem that way by the way he acts around me now, but how can one tell when nobody will let me be around him for longer than two hours? Grrr @ the whole situation.

I have so many other questions that bring on other questions and – knowing my history of anxiety – will bring on fears. I can’t let that happen. That’s not who I want to be. Where is my best friend when I need her?

Today, my Dad could have been a NASCAR driver

This…

…is what my VISA card looks like.

On my way home from work today, I had to run a few errands, one of which required me to hand my card to the cashier. She looked at it, swiped it through her little machine, looked at it again, and said, “Is that your dad?” as she was handing it back to me. Um, hindsight is always 20/20, and had I thought about it at the time, I totally would have told her, “Yeah. My dad is a NASCAR driver”, cause that’s much more exciting than saying, “My dad worked for Lockheed Martin Skunk Works before he retired”. And I probably would have had her convinced if I could have pointed out my license plate. Haha.

Some people just don’t know, and today, that was just fine with me.