Been living in the same house for 20 years now. It will be 70 next year and believe or not the kitchen was never redone. This baby is all original. White formica counter top with silver sparkles which some I suspect have disappeared in our meals over the years. Ergonomic nailed metal sidings still protect the counter’s edge. Cabinetry is made of solid wood with lots of lead paint coatings. Wood drawers slides directly on its wood frame which create saw dust falling in my pots and pans underneath. I just hate it when I forget to clean them and have wood dust floating in my spaghetti boiling water.
Well, as you probably read earlier our dog is now gone and my spouse did not forget to remind me a promise I made her years ago; Let’s not put our old dog through a 6 week renovation with strangers. Let’s wait till she dies.
Following weeks of dreaming our kitchen and meeting with a designer we had at some point to look at the cost of it all. A 70 years old Kitchen requires a lot of work. You are not just replacing kitchen cabinets for newer ones, you are actually prying nailed cabinets from a plaster wall. Like any older kitchens, this is not an open concept. A support wall divides it from the dining room. You see the picture. In the end this renovation will cost half of what we paid for the entire house 20 years ago. We’ve been mortgage free for 5 years and have grown accustomed to that extra money. Am I ready for this?
Almost a week now and one thing that strikes me is how much my habits at homes were conditioned by the dog.
How I’m always looking behind my back when I cook. Maya would always sit or lay on the floor waiting for crumbs to fall over the counter. I have to admit, in the last few years I gave her a fair share of vegetable and fruit offcuts.
Since one of her sleeping spot was leaning her back against the front door, I still cautiously open the door. Then, when I get in the house the first place I look is under the dining table where she’d most likely be in the last year since it was getting difficult for her to get up to greet us.
For some reason we still close our bedroom door when we sleep. Since she was an early bird we did not want to be waken up by a cold wet nose. That would work for 10-15 minutes but after that she would just start scratching the door until somebody went downstairs and put some food in her bowl.
We should have her ashes this week. The kids want to disperse some at the lake where we go for walks and had her bathe when it was getting hot. I will keep the rest and put it in the backyard where she spent a good part of her life.
OK, I will now stop talking about it and get on with my life.
You see, my dog died this week. Maya was a Golden Retriever and had been part of our family for 12 years. My adult daughters spent more than half of their lives with her. Like most Golden she was completely devoted to us. On a bad day she would greet you as soon as you stepped in the house. Albeit recently her hips made her a bit slower to get to the front door she was always the light of the family when somebody needed a boost.
For the few years my wife and I were preparing our daughters to the inevitable moment when we would lose her. Goldens are known to have an average life span of about 12 years. My daughters wanted to prepare a final feast where we would let her eat everything we had always denied her like a juicy steak or a hamburger. Like everything in life it rarely goes as planned. We surely never envisioned losing her this way.
I had a busy monday afternoon at the office and had left my cell on my desk while I was attending a group meeting. I got back and noticed my youngest one had left me a message. Something she never did. She’ll text me but for some reason finds it too much trouble making an actual call. As the message started I heard her in a panic frenzy. Not only she was crying and trying to make sense but the phrasing was totally inintelligible. All I gathered in the first 10 seconds was the word ‘’Maya’’. I did not even let the message finished. Just hearing the panic in her voice made me heartbroken. In the short span of hanging up and calling her back I thought the dog most likely had a heart attack or an epilepsia episode. Something not pleasant and easy to see but expected for a dog of this age. Boy was I wrong…
As soon as she picked up I heard again the same panic in her voice and still not making any sense. After calming her, she finally tells me that Maya is in the backward being attacked by a swarm of wasps. The dog is down on the grass trying to get up but can’t. She tried to reach her but got stung as she was approaching. I told her to try to hose her down until I get home. This was an excruciating 30 minutes back home and I can only imagine how she must have felt during that time. Thinking about it behind the wheel I called her again and asked if she could get dressed with all her winter gear and approach the dog. She said she would try before hanging up again.
When I got home, I found both my daughters covering up the dog with their arms on the balcony. They had managed to bring her by the patio door and had covered her in a blanket. At this point the dog is breathing, we might have a chance. I grabbed Maya, put her in the trunk of our SUV and drove off to a local veterinarian hospital just a couple of streets from where we live. This a literally a 5 minutes drive when you get all the green lights. On our way wasps started flying around in the car. They probably got stuck under the blanket when they covered her.
I pull in the parking and hear her throw up in the back. No time to think about what it is going to do to my new car’s smell. I pick her up and as I entrer the lobby they direct me to the emergency room. I put her on the table and they start examining her as I explain what happened. After a few minutes we are asked to leave and go wait in the waiting room. My eldest wisely suggest to clean the car while we wait. When she gets back she tells us she found over 10 wasps in her vomit. What a desperate fight she must have fought. An hour later, the veterinarian tells us she suffered through a lot of stinging. They were able to pull out around 50 stings just on her head alone. Since wasps don’t lose their stings when they attack these could only have been from wasps that Maya was fighting off as she was stung. I can’t imagine how many more times she got hit but at this point it didn’t matter. I’m offered to let her under observation for the night and that they will call later to give me an update. We were able to see her before leaving. Her head had swollen around the eyes but with some effort she still was able to look at us. With her tongue out and trying to get up she looked like she was smiling optimistically and telling us she was going to be alright. We kissed her and told her we would come back in the morning.
This is what a bowl of wasp stings looks like.
It did not occur to me at the time but a 75lbs dog should not get out alive of this after sustaining so much stinging. My mind just wanted her to come back home.
The evening was silent at our house. I got to bed around 11 and had not heard from them. This could only mean she was getting better or so I thought. Just before 1 in the morning I get a call; She started to get up again but her urine has blood in it. This could be good if it clears in the following hours or not. I don’t need to tell you that I did not get much sleep that night but I still had to go to work the next morning.
I get out of bed a bit before 7 happy at not getting a call for the remaining of the night. As I’m taking a shower, my wife pops in and tell me we have to hurry, Maya’s having a stroke.
We get there 15 minutes later, she is now on life support with a breathing pump. She will never have a chance to hear our goodbyes.
The following days were just the saddest we never had as a family. Even I could not cheer my own family. My daughters were both starting to get a cold. These were not only sad but bad times also.
White, married but atheist, middle class man pretty much sums me up. You can ask around and people will tell you how nice I am. I have become what was expected of me; a good son, a good husband and a good father. I have nothing to feel underprivileged about.
I have a lovely wife, two adorable daughters, a house, a car and a dog. I wake up every morning, have breakfast, take a dump and shower, get dress, kiss my wife, fight traffic to work, work, have lunch, do more work, fight traffic back home, make diner, watch something on the laptop, kiss my wife goodnight and sleep.
So why start this blog?
Simply to speak about what I feel.
I have been thinking about this project for a while now so I can be anonymous and see if there are others living life the way I do.
As you can tell I have put myself in this comfortable life and numb myself of life’s hurdles. I was raised to take it all in and be a rock for my loved ones. I rarely show signs of weakness. As I’m writing this first entry I don’t know if I’ll ever release it but as you can possibly tell I’m doing this to keep my sanity.
Where do I go from here?
Well, let’s find out. Like every morning I will put one foot in front of the other and hope this will bring me to a better place.
Inside My Head 