Soft & Sweet

[Westerly_2]

Thus is the spot to post our more sensitive sentiments - prose or poetry - and heave a heavy sigh or two.

[Westerly_2]

Losing Him

 

I am missing what was gone long go, not so much the recent pain and blood, the wet bed pads and the narrowing of his view bit by bit, day by day – the peripheral vision gone, the switching from The Times to the Regional section of the silly local paper, the “who got stabbed” slice of life, the gradual loss of appetite and strength to sit and talk. All that failed needed to go, one way or another. Was it really out of season? You can argue. It seems his fate was sealed, but you can argue.

 

What I do miss, though I didn’t realize I would at the time and didn’t cherish them, were the tall and handsome times, the devilish times, the times he had the spirit to stay out too late and exasperate me. I miss him in the driver’s seat, riding away to places we loved to waste time in, and now those places are darkened by his shadow.

 

I pick up and study the old photos, dusty glass in cheap frames – chiseled cheeks and clear, bright eyes – standing with his roofers in front of the governors’ mansion, so proud of that job. He is as jaunty as a feather in a cap. In another, he is standing with his army comrades in green fatigues, looking like the brightest guy in the room – which he was.

 

We fussed and fought those early days. The path we walked wasn’t always smooth. As the man he became with the gray beard dragging around his tank of oxygen or scooting up the street in his Jazzy, you saw him as a much-used stuffed toy, worn to threads and missing the scary parts. The bar girls knew he was a kindly joker who would leave plenty of ones in the well when he left.

 

You could say he was always more generous than I.

[Bmichael]

Well done.

[Marilyn]

Really, really well done! It moved me greatly, as I embark on a new marriage somewhat late in life ... and helps me resolve to be as generous as my new guy.

[Westerly_2]

Thank you for reading. I move on with a dog story.

 

The Big Black Dog

 

We had a black lab who hated water. He was part something else, maybe Akita, so that could be the part that hated the water. In the summer we would drive to the park, where there was a fine and rapid creek. JD would jump out of the car and run, but he gave the creek a wide pass.

 

My husband John liked to see a dog in the water; he would throw sticks in the creek and cheer him in. JD’s eyes followed the stick, but his toes stopped at the water’s edge. He stood and whined at the water-borne mouthful. There was only one time I remember he forgot his distaste for wetness, his heavy body flopping like an accident into the rolling water. He went under, rolled, lunged at the stick, snagged it and struggled up the slippery bank – unhappy and shaking off water from his big head to his drooping tail. The drops flew from one end of his rippling body to the other, the way pond ripples move on down until the whole pond is in motion. I do not remember that he ever made the plunge again.

 

John loved that dog. He was so drunk that evening I returned from work to find JD lying dead on the rug – the dog was old by then – and John crying his eyes out, needing help to get on with it. That is a whole story for another time.

[Kristina Lunde]

Awww... crawled right up there in my heart, both of them.

[Kristina Lunde]

Aww...growing some tears while floating on your memories. Bet he had one of those priceless smiles topped off with a crystalline eye twinkle. Really vivid. Thanks for letting me have a peek.  

[Westerly_2]

II

It would be easy to gild the memory of JD, now that he’s gone. But there was more to him than the funny tricks he learned so well or his smiling fuzziness. He was big and he was loud and he was easy to remember. As a free mixed breed puppy, he would cock his head in a way my husband called “his sincere look.” And the vet, looking him over, had promised he would be “a fine, big dog for you.”

 

Big, he was – so big at last that a walk with JD was a walk led and paced by JD.  He yanked the leash straight out from your straining arm, and your racing shoes clapped the pavement in a way you didn’t want the neighbors to see.

 

When we had two dogs my teen aged son made his friend walk JD, while he walked the smaller, more manageable dog. They went to the convenience store around the corner, and just before their destination, JD would stop to relieve himself in the shrubbery across from the dry cleaners right next door to it. He would crouch there and thoroughly empty his bowels as though he owned the place and paid the taxes on it. My son’s friend kept expecting s different result  ; but there was never a break in the routine.

 

He had a lot of routines like that: like compressing the ball in his powerful jaws, pocking it with teeth marks, infusing it with spit, and then laying it before your feet. Good times.

[Bmichael]

“ … Shoot, there wasn’t nothin’ we could do, ‘cept watch and wait. The ewe…she was hurtin’ real bad, but hangin’ on though I figured I might have to put her down before it was over. I sent Rusty back to the truck for the rifle.

That girl struggled mightily, she did, but somehow found the strength to stand up. Balancing on wobbly legs, Momma twitched, rolled her eyes back and in a panic, threw herself sideways to the ground. With that, and with the help of the Almighty, it started comin’ out.

Rusty dropped down to help, but it wasn’t right.

He started breakin’ down. “Daddy!...”

Things weren’t where they were supposed to be. Some were sticking outta places they shouldn’t… others were pressed hard against the youngun’s gut like it was pregnant or somethin’.

I picked it up by the rear legs, hung it upside down and started shakin’, slappin’, and swingin’ it back and forth…tryin’ to put things back where they belonged.

…til all the sudden, everything musta’ settled in ‘cause that bulge was gone.

I set it down gently and backed off and for a time, it just laid there, still.

You know, when I was younger, I never did give much thought to death ‘an dyin’- ‘specially when it came to the stock. But this whole thing was fairly bothersome. Don’t know… guess things change as we go along.

All the sudden, there was this suckin’ sound and that tiny body filled with air and right quick the baby started breathin’. A minute later it tried to stand up, tremblin’, all bloody and wet… bawlin’ its head off.

At the sound of all that fussin’, Momma jumped up too, and they fell down together...momma furiously lickin’ that girl-child clean…and alive.”

[Westerly_2]

      :^ }          Sweet!

[Marilyn]

Very nice! And, yep, sweet!

[Kristina Lunde]

I think I did something similar when my kid was born...

[Kristina Lunde]

;>)