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Jean & Goldie

Why do dogs have to die?

My Australian friend called me when I was half way across Pennsylvania or maybe it was Nebraska. I had shared my cell phone number with my friends on a Golden Retriever chat board. These are folks I got to know over 9 years ago when my Goldie needed a pretty invasive surgery to repair a knee ligament tear. When Muriel called I knew it was her from the Aussie accent. We spoke for nearly a half an hour. We shared travel stories; she had crossed the U.S. by car in her early 20's. We shared dog stories; her Molly had also had the knee surgery 7 or 8 years ago. I spoke to many friends on that 7 night, 8 day cross country drive from Boston to Tucson. This was the finale of our relocation to Tucson, me and the dog in a 1998 Toyota mini-van.

Today Molly has cancer, in her brain. A few weeks ago she started bumping into walls. Muriel was told by the veterinary Ophthalmologist that Molly was blind; it was a sudden degeneration of the retina. For a secondary diagnosis, Muriel took Molly for an MRI and the diagnosis was worse. Molly has a tumor on her brain. Muriel and her husband will learn the prognosis next week.

I have been thinking about Molly a lot these last few days. I have been thinking about Goldie and Guin and Dixie and Truman and Noble and Summer and so many of the wonderful Golden Retrievers I have known. These dogs are the loyalist, most loving creatures. I call them Velcro dogs for their need to be right by your side through thick and thin. Of all the creatures on this earth that deserve to live forever it is dogs and specially Golden Retrievers. What lessons in unconditional love, living in the present-be here now, loyalty and humor we can learn from them. The human heart's ability to open up and love more and more is unlocked when you love a dog. Golden Retrievers smile when they are happy and they are happy when they are with you. So perhaps it is better when they proceed us. Their pain over our passing probably is more painful. But why so soon? Molly is just over 8 years old. Too young for a dog so beautiful to have to face up to cancer. It is sad to know that she is not the only one. Goldie's litter mate Guin was diagnosed last year with hemagiosarcoma. She is beating the odds and living longer with a very silent cancer that is untreatable. These dogs are not alone, however. They have people who love them and will help them and keep them pain free. They have people who live far away who are offering support and kind thoughts.

There is a poem about crossing a rainbow bridge to an island where your pet will wait for you to pass and you both will then go to heaven. Your pet will be happy and young and pain free while they wait for you. This poem is a comfort to many. I remember just moments before my mother died seeing a single osprey fly low over me while I was in my garden. I knew it was her like the wings of angel, flying away. The spirit always lives on. Dogs may fly away too, but like us their spirit becomes part of everyone they touch.

May Molly live a long time before her spirit is called. May they all live forever in our hearts.

vickers copyright 2009

Flat Stanley on a Flat Earth

Watching a couple take a photo of themselves with their niece's Flat Stanley at the Arizona Desert Museum in Tucson the other day, We were wondering about all the meanings of the word flat. Any small chested woman knows the humiliation of middle school taunts. Luddites who think we can fall off the earth at the end of it, see flat earth as their planet. The stock market can fall and fall and fall, but we are relieved when it is flat. We are not so relieved when sales or tires are flat. Many of us aspire to flat stomachs and maids at the motel have contests over who can make the best flat bed made for the sleeping pleasure of those who drive flatbeds. Hair stylists go for flat styles. We flatten out the pancake after flipping it. When a souffle or cake goes flat we sigh. We can be flat on our backs for sleep, relaxation, pleasure or because we fell with a bang. Garbage compactors flatten household waste. School children sit with hands flat on their desks. Nebraska is the flattest state in the union. Tornadoes can flatten buildings in a moment. We will not know when we flat-line. We should know if we are going flat-out. The gardener rakes the soil flat. We watch Flat Stanley and wonder where he has been; to Nebraska? Is his girlfriend Flat Stella and does she need a bra? Driving off on the flat road they go on to a flat life. We prefer the rolling hills and the nooks and crannies, but we do wish them well.

What were they thinking?

What were they thinking?
1. The first human that ate an artichoke? Did they eat a second one? Or when they didn't die, did another human pick one up and begin to munch after thinking, "well grog didn't die"?
2. The first humans that sat down in the middle of a desert and said "this looks like a great place to raise a family"?
3. The drug researcher that thought, hmmm, Gila Monster spit, I'll bet that will be good for diabetics.
4. The Pope who thought "no one will notice my new appointee doesn't believe the holocaust happened"?
5. The designer who decided since 4 inch high heels look good, 6 inch ones with a lot of straps over the tops will look even better?
6. The person who thought kudzu was good to control erosion because it grew really fast and was impossible to eradicate?
7. The person who thought fast burning buffel grass would be great food for free range cattle?
8. Implanting 8 viable embryo was a great idea?
9. The human who heard the first fart?
10. The first person to throw a pie at someones face?
copyright 2009 vickers

Religious Experience

Standing on the edge of a midnight cliff at the sight of an ancient temple, I stopped for a few minutes to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I could hear and feel the wind which smelled of salt and brine. The sound of the waves was drowned out by the hissing of the flow spilling into the ocean a half mile away. Now and again the flare of the fire as the water broke it apart would back-light the spit of land that was growing even as I watched. I hated to turn on the flashlight,but more fearful of losing my footing on the path. I was alone and thinking about the ancient people who walked this path before and wondered who they were. The closer I got to the path's end, the louder the hissing became. The louder the sounds of fire and water were, the more deeply the silence of being alone weighed on me. We had decided to take turns walking the path. The baby was sleeping and we didn't want to lift him out of the car in order to go together. One would stay behind and each go in turn. So here I was alone at an ancient Hawaiian temple walking to the paths end marked by sharp edges of broken lava. Now afraid and disturbed, I knew I had to let the feeling pass through me. When it did I was plunged into a peaceful silence only broken by the next wave breaking below on the rocks or the next fall of flaming lava into the cold water. The closer I got to the path's end, the more the sounds seemed to be in slow motion. Each isolated by some shroud of steam and memory. Alone on the dark cliffs of the Big Island, Hawaii, at the edge of flows form Kilauea's Kupaianaha vent, the enormity of the planet enveloped me and as I looked up at the moonless night sky, stars partially obscured by steam clouds, I saw further into the universe that I thought possible. The peace that came over me was profound. One with the universe, a religious experience, the power of entering Mahasamadhi was the reality of that moment. Lasting less than a an hour, the experience of that night has stayed with me for two decades. The memory of it is calming and deep. The path and the temple site are gone now. Pele took them both some time ago and she will keep them in her realm forever. I will have the memory of her fire with me forever. copyright 2009 vickers

Winds

About a decade ago, while cross-country skiing on the Big Field near Lake Whitehall, the wind whipped the snow sand that floated on top of packed bergs. It hit my face and stung. What was the experience of the first humans to come this way, blown on the winds? The Bump/Beach ancestors came on wooden ships landing on the New England coast. Did the first Beach woman to give birth know that I would be in the familial line? What did the wind feel like to her standing on the deck of that ship? The wind blew her in and kicked and swirled the line throughout the land. Standing in the sun I stretched my back and felt the hot desert wind coming from the southeast. The wind is carrying the seeds of desert wildflowers. The wind will bring monsoons in July. The wind will carry my son across continents and seas to his life which will not remain here. The wind is bringing the migrating birds who stop and sing for a moment in time. I have not felt the bitter winds coming down the Mississippi river in January for many years, but my skin still remembers. I often think of the large osprey that glided on the wind over my garden the moment my mother died.
When you stand next to a saguaro cactus the wind moving through brings the sighs and songs of the ancestors to your ears. Their stories are caught on the cactus spines until the wind picks them up again and sends them along. We are dreams and stories in time. We will be sand in the wind in our day. When our ashes soar on the wind we will sing. copyright 2009 vickers

Reading or not

For all the hoopla about major author's blockbusting successes, reading is down, at least in America. It used to take in the hundreds of thousands to millions of books sold to put your book on the best seller lists. Now it can be as little as 75,000 books sold. Literacy or reading? Is it that people cannot read or just choose not to? Some will blame television, video game and computer distractions for the loss of readers in America. Some will say the higher number of non-English speakers is the cause. Schools that require reading of uninspiring books also get the blame. There are those in my circle who think it is the anti-intelligence wave of the past 8 years that is the culprit. Hell, why not blame the Super Bowl?

I feel sad for the non-readers. When I think of the places I had been to by the time I was 10, I am warmed by the memories. I would stack up the maximum number of books one was allowed to take from the library and the ensuing three weeks would be exciting journeys to lands and cultures with people who lived amazing adventures. I would read and be carried away for hours. The smell of a library and books still evokes those memories. What a gift a writer gives. Words that have the power to fill us with feelings, take us to foreign lands or alien solar systems. Words that enable us to understand and feel empathy and tolerance for otherness. Books, stories, written or told or acted can save a life, inspire beauty and art and bring people together. Telling a story is bringing others into your circle of life and giving breath and sustinence to them.