Music and laughter through searing pain: My familiar dose of medicine

It's the song that has been playing over and over in my head. The little earworm since I called the vet this morning to call them out to see Pepper this afternoon at home. It's a song I haven't heard in I don't know how many years and bears no importance or relevance in my life.

Until now.

And I realise, with an amused smile, that this is SO Pepper. The chorus could have been written by her. If... y'know... she had opposable thumbs.

So as we sit here waiting for her time to go, she and I, please have a listen to "our song" and smile with me:

If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?

If you leave me, can I come too? 

We can always stay

But if you leave me, can I come too? 

And if you go, can I come too?

"Can I go now?" Helping my old girl stand down

The day that would never come.

There's come a time when I've realised something I hadn't seen before. I always professed I wanted Pepper to end her days by herself. Naturally. My hope was for her to have a dignified end but that if pain was making living too hard, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. 

I'm walking on the bridge now. And I have a big juicy bone enticing my old faithful girl to follow me.

I did not even see, before yesterday, that she won't go until I lead her. She is too obedient. She is too apologetic. Look at that photo up there. That is the doleful look she has always had. The grateful look. The care-taking "may I help you?" look. To this day, stumbling and disoriented as she is now, she waits to be ushered inside (or out) and never assumes to go anywhere we haven't directed her. Why would she not look for my guidance now? Jazz is another story. A different energy altogether. She barges her way past all of us, whacking Pep in the face with that kangaroo-strength tail of hers. She waits for no one and has to be reminded of the correct etiquette (she knows it, she just takes liberties all the time). 

Pepper wouldn't dare. She's not even going to die without being given permission.

Before yesterday, I thought it would be wrong somehow of me to snuff Pepper's lights out. But she seems to have reached a point where she needs me. Needs help to stand down. An insightful Facebook friend I've known for a number of years suggested the poignant timing of this turn of events for our old girl. On the back of my last post where I mused that I really felt "okay" now.... here she is, turning up beside me to hang her lead on the hook and hand in her badge collar. 

Forcing my hand.

Willing me to choose.

Now we are deciding on burial spots in the backyard and whether we'll opt for a call-out from the vet or if I will take her on one final car ride.

I have been torn by this for so long. But now it's no turning back. There will be no more false alarms for dear Pepper. Remember that rather embarrassing time two years ago when I thought her number was up but she had just gorged herself on dog food? That was an embarrassing laugh (only with hindsight, I hastily add). I don't want her to be in pain. A trip to the vet this morning confirmed she has lost most of the feeling in one back leg, the other is not too crash hot. Her front legs are barely holding her weight and she has lost so much muscle tone that her lower back is now compromised. The way she falls (hard) and the increased frequency of her slips mean that I just cannot allow her to go on any longer.

And I realised, not more than three hours ago, that it is only appropriate that it is me who has to be with her. She and I. The two of us. Alone. Together. We spent so many days this way over the past seventeen years. I would literally burst outside to find her if I had become overwhelmed by my grief during the long days when Steve was at work. I'd call Pep - she was never far away - and she would sit with me, whine alongside me as I would sob and sob and sob. She'd slip a paw up into my hand and rest her head on me. Always.

[As an aside, how the hell Steve coped going to work through that, I will never know. If anyone, wants some assistance with understanding from a male's perspective, I encourage them to seek out this excellent blog for fathers.] 

Pepper hasn't been able to do what she instinctively has always done. It's been about a year since she was able to properly balance her weight so she could give me a paw. I wanted to nurse her through her geriatric months, which have turned into years. But now I see what I didn't see before.

I need to relieve her of her duties to me. It's okay for her to go. I've told her many times over, at first when I didn't really even believe it. But there is a profoundness in having to do this for her as well. It is right this way, I've come to accept it quite quickly. It makes sense to me that a dog so fiercely brave and loyal will never lay down and snuff out. As it is today, she senses something is up - I have had to sit beside her and MAKE her lie down to rest. She has been trying to stand beside me since we returned from the vets.

They are no fools, these animals who sacrifice their lives for us. I'd like to think I am about to receive one hell of a guardian angel when she slips peacefully across the void. It makes it only ever so slightly less painful to hope.

And hey.... just an update - look at this: we did it, she's leaving after seventeen years - that one was a super-important post about my girl. So. I can officially say I really have lived with Pepper for as many years as I lived with my mother! I rest my case.

8 years on and finally: I'm OK today

The floating feeling for thirty-one days between the anniversaries of her birth and her death did not happen this year. For the first time, I was healed enough. Perhaps it was just that I was distracted enough. We'll be going gently today, Steve and I. We know what happened on this day, eight years ago. We were both there, after all. The weight of that tiny body will forever be felt in our arms.

The LGBB began school a week ago. If this day had not fallen on a weekend, I wonder if I would have had any time to notice the date at all.

You are newer to my story than I. It has been seeping in to my core for eight years now. I am not new to it. You may be coping with your own recently started infant loss journey. It may seem unfathomable that today could be anything but intensely sad forever... I get that, completely. I previously couldn't have imagined the day of the anniversary of my firstborn's passing being less than horrid every year myself.

In any case, I do not wish to diminish the impact I have previously always felt on this day. But I cannot deny that there has been a lightening of my burden. I hope this is a comfort to you, rather than insulting.

I have done and written all I can, from every angle and every which way but crazy.... well, no, that's not true; I'm quite certain at a few points during the life of this blog I have written whilst under the influence of my own tormented insanity - a mother's insanity - and I make no apology for this maternal crazy-insane slant in some of my earlier posts. I am sure that Ellanor will continue to provide me exceptionally well-timed points of learning.

For today, however, I hope that each of you will take the time to welcome her fairytale life into your hearts by reading the story in the link below.

Can a baby's short life be seen as a fairytale? Can there be any meaning at all in a passing that is so tragically soon?

I think, yes. On both counts. It is truly breathtaking. The message is Universal, in a way it represents the profound meaning of all life. But if you are currently in the turmoil of this in your own life, then it must be you who decides.

Please do come back and leave a comment here if you are moved to do so.

Little Ella: The Story of an Earth Angel  

(grab the tissues and settle in! This is a short story, beautifully told with a very important message 

- written the week Ellanor passed away, by Susannah Brindle)

Make it genuine

I was running this morning. Literally, not figuratively. The dog was keeping her working pace at my side - I always feel so much more serious when I glance down at Jazz, she really hits her stride next to me when I jog and looks like she's ... well, working so I feel obliged to put a decent effort in because she is - when I noticed an elderly woman up ahead.

She looked quite frail and was wearing sensible slacks, court shoes and a cable knit jumper that stopped at her waist. She was walking a little white dog. I've just described pretty much every elderly woman going for a walk, haven't I? But I digress.

When the woman looked up and saw us coming, she crossed the street hurriedly. I had already decided I would run down one of the driveway cross-sections and onto the street to go around her. So I felt kind of bad for being the cause of her struggling her dog across the road. As I got closer, I looked over to her where she was now pacing up the opposite footpath. The look on her face was dark. A scowl at "the youth of today" if ever I saw one. Granted, without makeup I do still look like I haven't even hit my mid-twenties or had a hard day in my life. HAR! Har-dee-har...har.... ahem. Little do they know when they see what they think is a fresh-faced girl. Sometimes, just to digress again, I honestly wish some of the experiences of my life would show up on my face. They just. Don't. You can't help genes, I guess.

Anyway, she was still looking at me and I was looking at her. I was concentrating on not tripping, not wavering and bumping the dog - we've done that before and, oh boy, it isn't pleasant for either Jazz or me (her poor toes) - so it took me a moment for the thought in my head "Smile a greeting" to reach my lips and work the muscles of my face. I'm old enough now to not take on whatever the response is going to be to my smile. Sometimes it's returned, other times it's not. That's all cool. Especially in the solitary quiet of a lovely early morning where people get out on their own and usually want to be on their own without some fitness goon grinning their chops off at them.

I kept my smile on. I wanted to call out to her an apology for making her cross the road. It had obviously put her out. I really hadn't wanted to disrupt her path but didn't want to go out on the road too early to round her. But because I was running I was passing her quicker than I would've been able to say the words. I thought she wouldn't respond at all.

But then, there it was. A smile. Parting the dark shadows on her face so briefly. There it was. The person behind the veil. It was a really interesting moment. One in which I realised that her closed expression was probably less about having to cross the road to avoid a jogger and their dog and more about.... well, who knows? Whatever was pressing in her life today.

I jogged on and couldn't stop thinking, rhythmically, like a mantra (jogging can have such a meditative effect on me, which is weird, considering I'm working so hard!)....

Be the first to smile. Make it genuine. 

You could change the course of someone's day.

Even a dog can smile.

A dying art. As opposed to dying for your art.

I doubt it'll ever kill me, but writing anything longer than a page by hand these days hurts!

And that hurts here *close-fisted heart tap to my homies... mummies... blogger...ies*

Eden is hosting a weekly meme - about horses who are not on the nose? - and this weekend it was about handwriting - horses that can write? I don't know, I'm very confused (just generally) - and I was very happy to see so many samples of handwriting. On Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram. By the time I got around to joining in, I realised (as with so many things in my life) I was beyond fashionably late and it had closed.

Somehow, Eden saw fit to open the Linky back up. So I quickly scrawled the note below - the musings of which I shall endeavour to expand on in a post in the near future - and found myself rather happy to be writing. Actual pen-to-paper writing! I love writing. I love forming the letters, I love watching my hand as it seems to bounce and flow almost with a mind of its own as it shapes the letters. I love the pace of writing - note to self: when brain is overworking..... Stop. Write. Let it slow back down to the limited speed of hand to self-regulate.

I mean, take a look at those k's. I can make the tail of an S go from here to the kitchen. And my w's? My w's are almost out of control. I was quite tame today, really, but I do adore letting loose on a piece of foolscap with a pen. The more felt-tipped the better, for mine.

One thing I've always wanted to do is make a font out of my own writing. That would be awesome. But so lazy. In a world where the shopping list is the only thing I write with any great regularity, even this is becoming obsolete in our house - thanks a LOT, Siri.

Thanks for reopening your Linky, Mrs Land! Looks like several of us just missed out. I am impressed by how keen we are to put pen to paper. I truly hope it doesn't die out as much as "they" say it will.....

Time will tell.

Do you enjoy writing?

School's in: If there ever comes a day....

From "The House At Pooh Corner" by A.A.Milne (1928)

The kookaburras are laughing as I sit here at 9pm on the first night of our LGBB going to school. It's rare to hear them, certainly this late at night, round these parts. They're having a raucous good laugh.... at my expense, my paranoid ego wants to tell me.

See, here's the thing:  I thought I would have a cry in my heart after today. THE day. The big one that has been looming in my awareness for well over a year now. I put it off and put it off, imagining today. Kind of like anticipating something you want so much to come but you know it'll come with a cost. Come with some pain.

That is how I just naturally expected today to go. Scene:  me back in car, letting myself go into the cocoon of the vehicle cabin, possibly searching for something soppy to play on the radio as a fitting backdrop to my tears.

But no! Not a tear fell. Not even a "Oh my giddy Aunt, but they are SO gorgeous with their enormous shorts down to their shins and dresses down to their ankles, bless them all" blub of happiness (which I am oh so good at.... just ask the LGBB's kindy teacher from last year who pegged me as hopeless right from the first time - of many - that I stood and watched someone else's kid have show and tell and proceeded to cry uncontrollably just watching how proud they were with showing their favourite whatever to the captive audience).

Checking they got her name right

You see on the surface, today was surprise-free. I knew Lolly would breeze through that door, I had a feeling I'd get the briefest of hugs and then she would be on her way, back turned to me and her Dad. I expected I would feel a sense of loss (as with the closing of any long, important chapter) but I haven't. The day went off without a hitch. Lolly did give us a goodbye hug but it was a squeeze so warm and loving and bone-crushing that I knew she was ready to flap her wings and practice flying now.

Retrospectively looking back on it, and tucking the girl in to her bed tonight after a celebratory pizza feast, a foot massage with lavender oil and a tummy-winding exercise (that is... winding as in winding down, not anything to do with a breeze!) - which may not be to everyone's understanding or pleasure, but is our tried and true method of corterizing any remaining threads of connection to energies of the day that are not hers to to be troubled by or to own - I allowed myself to realise the profoundity of the day.

"Mum," she drearily said to me as she struggled to keep her eyes open while I rubbed her feet. "I think you should be a teacher."
"Oh?"
"Actually, you even look like my teacher!" A compliment I will gladly take, given that her teacher is about fifteen years my junior and gorgeous to boot. I can't see it, personally, but who am I to disagree?

The Bag with its own postcode

We then had a chat about how what she really wanted was for me to work at the school so she could see me during the day sometimes.  "Well.... not all teachers work in schools, you know," I informed her. "Perhaps I could be a teacher anyway and just not work at a school." I like to get her thinking.

The conversation resolved itself when the LGBB decided she really did want to go to school but wished, at the same time, she could remain a little kid. "Forever." I told her tenderly that I remember having those exact wishes when I was not much older than her. The weight of responsibility and experience already upon my eleven year-old head felt too hard and I didn't want to grow up. It was impossible not to.

So today, I see now, while it was the beginning of the feeling of guilt-free days for the first time in five years (until school becomes a burdensome chore she drags her feet to get to each day and I somehow find a way to feel horrible and guilty about her having to be penned in by the institution while I am not), that this was a day of initiation for both of us.

As mother and daughter, our roles and expectations of each other are about to step up a notch. I hope she continues to be as patient and engaging with me as she has for her first years. Today I had to farewell the little girl, who was really not that little girl any more either but someone waiting in the wings. Waiting for the very moment Miss C opened the classroom door so that the children with the too-big uniforms could spill in to their new exciting space.

Just as the celebrant spoke of at Ellanor's memorial, this is a changing season - where we say goodbye, but also in many respects, it is a hello. A "welcome to your new world" for my Lolly. And I couldn't be more proud of how she began that new life today.

I know she won't always appreciate or even want to hear my imparting of wisdom.
I know one day she will not want me to come near her, let alone massage her, with lavender oil before bed time.
I know one day (sob) that Scrapsy will not get a guernsey as her best, best, bestest friend any more.
I know, once again, I have a daughter who is a child of the universe now. As she always was. And I am so deeply honoured. You know?



But I will always be boundary-keeping my daughter, for as long as there is a breath in me.

It's so brief. Really. She's grown me up a little more today. My little inner child is moping slightly but it won't for long. How can it (and what right does it have) when it sees this buoyant soul beaming back?

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together...
There is something you must always remember.
You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
But the most important thing is, even if we're apart...
I'll always be with you.”

A.A.Milne

Look who's going to school

Just three short years ago, our little Lollipop was pooping in her nappy at the airport as she farewelled her cousins ("Mia 'n Emmaaaaaa! Where they be?") and using Scrapsy to "make my better". You'll be relieved that smell-o-vision is not an invention - I still remember the sting of my nostrils as we walked back to the car to change her. Wafting a scent worthy of Pepe le Pew behind us.

Un smelle vous finay!

Now the LGBB is a confident, excited, enthusiastic and friendly five and a half year-old ready to blow their socks off this year in Prep.  She'll be there tomorrow, white socks neatly pulled up, plonking along in school shoes a tad too large and trying to avoid head lice (yeah, right.... wish us luck with that!). And I daresay I'll do similar to what Marg Simpson does with all the other parents as they forlornly wave off their children to camp until the kids are out of sight - then I'll do a big air-jump "WOOP!" and high-five some other parent next to me. Because let's face it: all things must end. And we have spent her entire life so far with each other. It's time to branch out, for both our sakes.

But back then, the LGBB was still crafting the natural comedic timing that has become one of her signature traits. Oh how she makes my heart soar.  Even if she still does stop me from singing in EXACTLY the same manner as she tries on in this video. This is one of my favourites. It is SO her at that age.

I am so excited for her. For me. Yet slightly worried, ready for whatever comes next.

Ahhh, boy, they were not wrong when they warned it would go faster than I could believe possible.

Enjoy your young'uns! Despite it all - everything that is hard and feels ennnnnndless... - I hope you do indeed stop. Sit back. And enjoy it. x