When Quincy the Yorkie was a puppy, we had a pool in the backyard. The owner of the kennel where we bought him warned me that might get into the pool and that he would not be able to get out because the long hair would drag him down and to be very careful. After about a week of letting him out and watching him around the pool, and not one attempt to even go near it I began to let him out, go pour my coffee and by the time I returned he would be done with his business and ready to come back inside. One morning though when I went to the door, he wasn’t there. I stepped outside and there he was, in the pool, towards the middle of the deep end where the drain was, circling like he was in a whirlpool. The suction was tugging at him and he was panicked, not even trying to dog paddle. I dived in the pool in my pajamas to rescue him. He hates water to this day. Bathing him is an ordeal. He fights like a tiger when I put him in the tub even though his feet are touching the bottom. His sinking experience must have stayed with him.
Years ago, I had a schnauzer named Grover. He was named that because his fur looked very much like Grover on Sesame Street, only not blue. When he was still a puppy, one day he got out and a while chasing a kid on a bicycle, got ran over by the bike. It didn’t even break the skin but from the yelps you would have thought he had suffered a major wound. He wouldn’t use the leg that had been run over and so I took him to the vet who did an x-ray and said there was no broken bone. That probably it was a little sore but in a few days he would be fine. Well, he wasn’t. Grover continued to drag that leg and it started to get “rug burned” from dragging it and a nasty wound developed. SO back the vet we went to get an antibiotic cream and supplies to wrap the leg until it healed. Grover would pull off the bandages with his teeth and so I would bandage the wound, put a child size tube sock on his leg and duct tape it to the top so he couldn’t pull it off. Eventually, the wound healed, but he still wouldn’t use the leg. My vet said that it was simply psychological, that there was nothing wrong with the leg and that at some point he would use it without thinking and realize that he could.
At the time I was dating a guy who happened to have a boat and we went out water skiing frequently. Having heard the adage Sink or Swim I came up with a plan to trick Grover into using the leg. I would simply take him out in the boat, throw him overboard and he would have to dog paddle, thus using the leg. Out we went one sunny day in the boat. We stopped and I dropped Grover into the water. He looked at me with eyes I will never forget, and began to sink. Not only did he not use the “injured” leg, he didn’t even attempt to use the other 3 to save himself. I ended up jumping in after him and it was days before he trusted me again. He would hide under the bed when I came in the room and growl if I attempted to come near him.
Grover never did use that leg and eventually it became infected again from him dragging it to the point that the vet recommended he be put down. Instead, my dear old compassionate dad, enlisted the help of a pilot friend whose dad happened to be a vet and together they amputated the leg (without the vet present) and Grover survived. He hopped then which was rather funny. He became known as Grover the 3 legged schnauzer and he adapted to his handicap with little effort. Years later he would develop a condition that required he be castrated and a new opening for urine be made and then he became known as Grover the 3 legged transvestite schnauzer since he was a male dog with female “parts”. He lived to be 11 years old and died one hot summer while we were not home and when we returned he had died in the backyard. An imprint of a schnauzer (beard and all) was left on the ground when Mike removed him to bury him and until the grass grew back I couldn’t bear to go in the backyard
There’s a lot to be learned from the story of Grover. Life throws us into deep water sometime and we have the choice to sink or swim. When Mike left I nearly drowned in my anger, sorrow and self pity. I didn’t want to attempt to swim. I just wanted to sink into a despair and depression. I wanted to die. I couldn’t bear the thought of living my life without this man that I loved and had children with. After I dropped the boys at school, I would climb back into bed and stay there until time to get them. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t think beyond getting through the next hour. In short, I was sinking. Had it not been for my friend Jan, I don’t think I would have made it through that experience. She brought me food, she prayed for me and with me, she reminded me about how important I was to my boys, to my family and to a great many friends. That song “love lifted me” always reminds me of her.
When my mother died, I experienced that same feeling of drowning in despair. How could I live the rest of my life without this incredible woman, my mother and my best friend. She was my rock, my cheerleader, my advisor, and I loved her beyond words. My friend Bill did not have the words to comfort me. I remember the ride back home after her funeral. I remember the great heaving sobs that racked my body. I remember Bill pulling over a dozen times to hold me in his arms and try to comfort me. I remember ranting and raving about how unfair it was that she was gone one minute and then a pain so deep in my soul that I felt I couldn’t breathe the next. I had gone back to school at my mom’s urging a few years earlier to finish getting my college degree, something that I had wanted to do for many years. It was her encouragement and support that kept me going those years. Just when the stress of working full time, raising two teenage boys and going to school at night would start to overwhelm me she would remind me that I could do it. That the end result would be worth the sacrifice.
She died early one Sunday morning. My semester finals were scheduled for the next 2 days. I called my professors and they would not cut me any slack. I had to go in to class, having just lost my mother, take my finals or I would not graduate as planned the following Saturday. I had the choice to sink, or swim.
I chose to swim. Not for me, but for her and for my sons. She would have wanted it that way. I could feel her urging me on when I sat in those classrooms and had to focus my mind on the test before me. And I felt her spirit propelling me across the stage at the ripe old age of 45 to shake hands and receive my diploma less than a week after she died.
Sometimes a friend may have to throw you a life line when you are drowning in despair. Sometimes, you may have to just float for a while before you can engage and get back to life. And sometimes, you may feel as if a part of you has been amputated and you have to learn to get thru life without that “limb”.
Its important to remember that you can. Never give up. Don’t sink. Swim. As if your life depended on it. Because sometimes it does.
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