Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Keeping the Faith

Years ago I discovered Gotham Writers online.  They had a physical presence in New York City but also offered online classes that I could take anytime.   You had homework assignments to write and turn in for critiques and feedback.  At that time in my life I had a little more time so I took a few classes here and there, but those dropped off as I found myself with more responsibilities at work and in my community and a generally busier life.

But I stayed on the mailing list and still receive the periodic newsletter with their events and offerings.  One of which recently was an online workshop, over Zoom like so many things today.  The workshop was one hour and 15 minutes, just a smidge over my lunch hour this past Friday, so I signed up.

The point of the workshop was the leader would give us a word prompt and we would have 15 minutes to write whatever came to mind, and then those who wanted to could share.

Our first prompt was Keeping the Faith.  Some people managed to write entire sections of short stories in that time while I could only manage a few sentences.  Others wrote more "feelings", like I was doing, but got more out of themselves.  I was too busy trying to define which Faith I was trying to "keep" - in myself, in my fellow man, or in my God (which, side note, was never in question, it was just a matter of which path I was going to take for the assignment.)

The ones that shared, not me to Billy's great surprise, talked a lot about the living through the pandemic and really had some beautiful words and alliterations for how their lives had felt in the last few months - looking through windows and comparing the virus to cement that had been dumped on their worlds to keep them in place.

Of course, on last Friday, the virus was still all anyone had to talk about when the thought of keeping the faith was a topic.

It was before the country was set ablaze by rioting and looting.  It was before innocent police officers were killed in the line of duty and hardworking people saw their entire livelihoods get wiped out and destroyed.

It was before.

Some of the thoughts I'm sharing below feel as if they need some kind of "qualifier".  These are only What-Ifs, not what I'm saying is true or trying to detract from what is, just wonderings.

All the rioting these last few days is coming from a tragic event last Monday.   On the evening of Memorial Day, a man was detained after using a counterfeit bill in a store.  From what I have read, the passing of the fake $20 was unintentional and the man was being compliant with the officer to a point, even waiting on the officers to arrive when the store owner confronted him with the fake bill.  He did resist when being placed into the police car and slipped down to the ground.  I have not watched the video of what all happened in the next almost 9 minutes but I do know from what I have seen that the officer detained the man on the ground by using his knee on the man's neck, possibly aggressively at times, but certainly in an unsafe manner, and the man died as a result.  The officer continued to hold him down with his knee even after the man stopped moving and asking him to please let him up.  From the witness accounts, again I have not watched the video myself, the man never tried to be aggressive with the officer or fight him, he was just asking for the officer to move his knee and release the pressure on his neck.  Three other officers were present on the scene but apparently took no actions to stop the officer or assist the man on the ground.

A man died after passing a bad $20 bill from an officer that was too aggressive in his manner of detention.

That sentence alone, as written, should horrify most folks.  It did me.

That is the way the story should have been presented in the media.  But it wasn't.  Notice that nowhere in that retelling did I ever mention the race of the officer or the man.  Ever.  For us to be feel outrage or anger or sympathy or even skepticism, the race of the participants was not important.  The facts alone were enough.

Yet the media immediately put out the story that is was a white racist cop killing a black man.  

Maybe the cop was just a jerk.  Did the media ever even think of that?

You know, one of those bad officers - and there are some just as there are bad priests, bad teachers, bad accountants, bad everything - who gets drunk on the power of his position instead of respecting the badge he wears.   You can be a jerk against another human being without being a racist.

Race didn't have to be brought in to the story to make it a tragedy, it already was.

So the already tenuous pot of race relations in the United States was stirred again.

I have read that, allegedly,  the officer had anywhere from 10 to 18 prior complaints against him for behavioral issues. We know his wife, a Laotian, filed for divorce just a few days after his arrest.  Maybe it was a "last straw" kind of event for her, maybe she'd seen more in their years together and knew he was capable of this kind of act.  Maybe he shouldn't have been out there on the streets anyway?  Were these prior complaints all white persons so it didn't get reported, or was it just because no one died that it wasn't deemed newsworthy?

I will stick my neck out right now and say that incidents occur between black officers and black persons and white officers and white persons, some even ending in death, that we never hear about.  I will go so far as to say that if the officer had been black the man on the ground white with the same result we would have never had heard about it.  The media wouldn't find that "provocative" enough.

No, instead, they threw out the racist tag and what has happened since has been heartbreaking.

The media placed a target on every police officer in this country, most of them good, honest, hardworking, brave men and women who put their lives on the line with every shift for all the rest of us.  They have blood on their hands, too, in all of this.

In the first few days after the incident there were peaceful protests.  People wanted to see justice for George Floyd.  Rightfully so.  The officer was arrested and charged with third degree murder in a matter of days, an act that could have taken weeks or months but with the video evidence only took hours.  The protest might have happened anyway, but I still think a lot of them were the result of the media continually spouting out the phrase "racist cop".  And in the last four or five nights the peaceful protests, while still present, have also given way to rioting and looting across the country.  Big towns and small ones.  Storefronts smashed.  Inventories raided.  I have watched cases of liquor being loaded into cars; big screen televisions being carried off; high end clothing stores being emptied.  The justification is that the businesses all have insurance so let some else pay for it.

Problem is, not all of them do.  Lifetimes of work have been destroyed.  Jobs lost, possibly forever if the businesses don't reopen.  These actions have nothing to do the peaceful protests or the incident itself.  These rioters are just opportunistic criminals trying to grab whatever they can.  They do nothing to honor the man for whom they are supposedly speaking out.

But even worse, I have seen police officers be injured, shot, beat up, killed, and a retired captain died on the street in St. Louis and we could all see it on Facebook.

All because of one jackass.

Well, one jackass and an overzealous media that couldn't wait to create this maelstrom.

I don't know if Officer Chauvin is a racist.  I don't think anyone has actually asked him.  I do know he exhibited very poor judgement in his final act as an officer and he will pay for that lapse for the rest of his life.  I know others have already paid with their lives because of his actions, and I hope he has to live with that knowledge as well.

I pray for the families of the officers killed and injured in the riots.  That should never have happened.

As of now, I don't know where the national story will end.  It may end with military force if the violence on the streets doesn't quell soon.  Or maybe once all the stores are looted and there is nothing else to steal the rioters will all go home and we will only be left with the peaceful protesters.  Only time will tell.

But I do know the pain for the Floyd and Chauvin families will be ongoing.  There will be a funeral, and a trial.  There will be loss for both.   My prayers continue to go out to them as well.





Monday, August 5, 2019

30

You know, when you're a child, anyone with an age of double digits you think of as "old" but, for some reason,  someone who is thirty just seems to be ancient!  It's like that is the highest age your little mind can even comprehend.  Even when you are in your twenties there is something about the thought of turning thirty that just seems to make some dread that birthday and fear it making them feel "old".  Some people feel at thirty that all their best years are behind them.

Thirty is just a number with which you just don't want to associate.

Except today.

Today, I woke up celebrating the fact that I married my best friend 30 years ago.

I met Billy in March 1988.  And while I cannot usually tell you what I had for dinner last night, or will forget a plot point on a show we just watched last week, or even what day it is sometimes without a calendar, I can still remember exactly what I was wearing the day I met him - pink shorts and my favorite sleeveless pullover sweater with pink and baby blue argyles.  I can close my eyes and still see my surroundings of the moment I first saw him leaving the softball field in Conway in his red Camaro.  I can relate to you verbatim our first conversation.  I was sitting on the bleachers at the softball field, waiting on the next game to start.  I had brought my cross-stitching with me as I had actually very little interest in the games and was only really there to be nice to one of the players on the team.  As I was sitting there Billy walked over and used my needlework as his opening line "what are you knitting?"   My response, "it isn't knitting, this is cross-stitch, and it's a sampler, see?" showing him the pattern.  "I do know how to knit, though, but this isn't it."

(Billy gets very frustrated with me because I have a tendency to correct him, a lot in his opinion.  I remind him that I have been doing that, literally, since he met me so it shouldn't be a surprise, but I will promise to try harder not to do it.)

The thing is, when I met Billy I had no idea I was meeting my Forever.  At the point where my life was on that March


day, I had no intention of even looking for a Forever for a long time.  I was newly detached from a long-time relationship, about to graduate from college, and had a job in the audit department of an international accounting firm waiting on me to start July 1.
Rome, Italy - 20 year anniversary


Life was good and I saw no need to make any changes.


But, even though I didn't know I was meeting my Forever, the Diviner of the Master Plan certainly did and He made sure all those details stayed in my brain, whether I knew why they were there or not.

It didn't take long, though, for me to realize what I had.  Billy had known from the start.  He told me before our first official date that he was going to marry me someday.  Again, given where I was in my life at that point my first thought was "stalker" and I tried to point out that he didn't even really know me.  He might not like me so much once he did.

Okay, he was right and I was wrong.  He surreptitiously had me looking at engagement rings in August 1988, engaged on December 21, 1988, and then planning an April wedding.  Busy season in that international accounting firm kyboshed that idea.  I took a calendar and found a date halfway between our birthdays  - August 5 - as the replacement date.

Summer days in Arkansas are generally no picnic, and that August 5 of 1989 was no exception.  It was hot!  Mom went early to the church and them turn down the air conditioning as low at it would go (one of several trips to the church that morning!) but we were still sweating through the whole thing in our full formalwear.  My "something old" was the handkerchief my Naunie carried at her wedding and I used it the whole time to try and help with that.  Billy is not much into the Pomp and Circumstance of events and that day he started asking from the altar if we could leave yet.  Ceremony wasn't even finished but he'd had enough of the fishbowl and was ready to go.  I think he mostly just wanted to change out of that tux into some comfortable clothes.

That still hasn't changed.

That day was full of good memories.  The phone in my apartment rang just as Mom and Dad and I were walking out to head to the church and it was Sears, wanting to know if I wanted to extend the warranty on my washer and dryer.  I stood there listening to the lady on the on end of the line, Mom and Dad looking at me like I was crazy and then I stopped her and asked if she could call back in a week because I was just leaving to go get married!  As we were getting ready at the church Daddy walked into the bride's room and told me Billy had no socks to wear but he thought I would know where some were for him? - they were in my purse.  I had realized when Billy brought his two garbage bags full of all his clothes that he had forgotten to leave some out for the wedding.  We took picture after picture and that chapel length train came in handy because the only way I could really be seen in any of the pictures with Billy in them was to stand one stair up behind him.  They swirled the train in front of me so it wasn't quite as obvious.

Thirty years is a long time.  Over the years we have shared love and supported each other through losses.  We have moved several times - different houses, different states - and endured a major home remodel where we did the bulk of the work ourselves.  We have changed jobs and been self-employed at the same time, working for each other.  We have created our family by bringing in dogs that needed a home and cried together when they left us, but always finding room for just one more.

We have built our Forever, together.

Funny thing, neither of us feel old enough to have been married for thirty years.

Walt Disney World - 5th anniversary

 (Billy used to tell me he didn't even think he'd live to see thirty so imagine his surprise in 1994 when he made it.)  Sometimes we still feel like those young kids that wanted to go to Six Flags over Texas for a weekend vacation, or travel to watch the Razorbacks on away weekends.  Up and able and ready to do anything!  A few years ago, though, we went to a concert in Lafayette, LA on a Thursday night and drove home afterward because I needed to be at work on that Friday and as Billy stood in front of the open fridge, trying to get something to put together for my breakfast, he said "we're too old for this".

We have enjoyed the good times and worked through those that weren't.  We are always striving to balance the seesaw, knowing that sometimes your job is to hold the other one up, and sometimes it is you that needs to be held.

But for all the ups and downs there is no one that I would rather do this Life with.  No one.  He is my rock, my biggest fan and

 cheerleader, my Everything, and I try to do the same for him.  He is the reason I want to wake up every day - just to see what that day might bring to us.

Both sets of my grandparents celebrated over 50 years of marriage.  I see as we get older that reaching 50 years together is as much luck as it is anything else.  The first step is that you have to get old enough to be together 50 years and that is often out of your control, but I'm certainly pushing for it!  I thank the Lord each night for giving us what He has so far, and hoping every day for just one more.

So, here's to another 30, baby!  I love you more than Life!  Thank you for knowing what you wanted all those years ago, and waiting on me to figure it out.


Costa Rica - 25 anniversary













Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Frankie

One day in mid-January 2004 I was at work and my cell phone rang.  We have a policy of not using our phones at work, particularly out at a client, but since I knew I Billy was returning to Natchez from Arkansas that day I glanced at it anyway, just to make sure he wasn't calling with car trouble or changes to his schedule.    And yes, it was him calling.  I answered it up because he never calls work unless there is something he really needs.

From the time I answered I could hear in his voice he was "shook", to use one of my dad's terms.  He was apologizing and saying he no other choice; he knew it was a bad time of year for me but he just had to do it.

I was getting nervous.

You see, he had picked up a puppy.

As he was coming through Lake Providence, Louisiana, right at the town's edge at the railroad tracks, he saw what looked like a dead animal in the road.  Since we don't hit an animal in the road, living or dead, he pulled the van into the left lane to go around, and then he saw it.

She wasn't dead, but instead dragging herself by her front paws trying to get out of the road.

He pulled over immediately and ran back to help her.  She had been hit by a car, obviously, but there was not car in sight.  The driver hadn't stopped.  He could see a couple of bigger dogs with two or three little pups following them that looked just like her running across a field.  Her family, probably. There was also a store in a little pink building, a fish market maybe?, and he said there were several people standing around in front of it.  Not a one of them had even taken a step in her direction to try and help her.  No one waved a hand at him as he was driving to get his attention to make sure he didn't hit her.

They just stood there.

I can still hear his words in my head.  "I had two choices, honey.  I could either pick her up and bring her to you or I could go over there and beat the BLEEP out of them for just standing there."  I told him he chose wisely and we would do what we could.  And I asked if he thought she could make the still two-plus hour drive to Natchez.  He thought so.  She was bloody but that mostly looked like it was from her paws where she was dragging herself on the asphalt.

I called our local vet and got one of the last appointments that day, finished my work and went home to change out of my work clothes and to see after the two we had at the time, Christy and Midnight, and then waited on Billy to get there.    When he did I headed straight out to the van, not even giving him time to get out.

What I saw was a dog unlike anything I'd ever seen before.  She was gray with black dots on part of her body but her face was kind of white and tan and her tail was bushy but not a ringtail like Christy had.  I didn't know what she was.

Dr. Gregg looked her over, took x-rays, and told us her pelvis was fractured but there didn't appear to be any internal damage to her organs.  He gave us three options.  First, because she was just a stray that we were not invested in (he didn't really know us that well back then - we get invested from the moment we see them) he could euthanize her; second, if we were invested in her he could do surgery to repair the fractures; or three, because she was so young that her bones had not fully hardened yet and we could try to keep her crated and quiet and see if they would heal on their own.  If they didn't heal properly then we could do surgery later.

We voted for option three.  (It is wasn't long after that when I explained our philosophy that going forward he should not offer us any options that he would not want his pediatrician to recommend to him for his children i.e. euthanasia) 

As we talked to Dr. Gregg I asked what she was and he said she looked like a pure Catahoula Cur, also known as a Catahoula Leopard Dog, and the State Dog for Louisiana.  He asked us what we were going to name her since we were obviously going to keep her and I asked for a few suggestions.  He said he knew a lot of Catahoulas named Merle since that is what their coloring is called.  I decided, though, to focus on those beautiful blue eyes of hers and named her Frankie, after one of my favorites, Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra.



We had never crated a dog before but I had large one that I had used when Christy and Stormy were in obedience training.  (I had to have a place to keep one while working with the other since their classes were back-to-back.)  I thought it would do so we brought it out and dusted it off and tried to get her settled in her new home.  It wasn't too hard at first.  The crate was a good size and she couldn't move a lot anyway so she got used to being in there to eat and sleep.  Taking her outside, though, was another story.  There is a lot more room in the front and side of our house than in the back so I would carry her out front whenever Billy let the other two at back.  Of course the challenge was how to support her back half so she could do what she needed and that was when I came up with old pantyhose.  I could slide the legs around her and use those to hold her up.  Since they stretched, I didn't have to walk all leaned over.  And it worked well.   She loved her freedom from the crate and would try to cover as much ground as she could on those two front legs!  I remember thinking one morning as I had crazy bed hair and my bathrobe was flying as I tried to keep up with her that the Natchez Garden District was going to wonder who they had allowed to move in downtown and escort us back to the Mississippi River Bridge!  As her bones healed and her mobility increased keeping her in the crate all day got harder and harder.  She could see Christy and Midnight having the run of the house and she got to where she wanted it, too.  Now, at this point Christy was thirteen and a half years old and Midnight was probably eight-ish so there wasn't a lot of running around the house, more like just hanging out all day.

Eventually, we were convinced that she was healed and it didn't take long before the crate was folded back up and stored away.  Even if she wasn't completely healed, we weren't getting her to stay in the crate so she basically forced our hand.  It seemed like every day when I came home from work you could see she had grown from that very morning.  She was healthy and happy and showed no signs she'd ever had a problem with her legs.

One of my fondest memories was not long after we let her of the crate to be one of the Girls.  Our house is a Victorian and from the front door you are looking down the center hallway all the way to the back door - straight shot.  It also has original hardwood floors.  One day I came home from work and Frankie popped her head out of the kitchen at the back of the house when she heard the door and came running at me up that hallway.  She realized too late, though, that she needed to stop and all of the sudden all four feet went out from under her and all four legs were splayed out!  Eyes wide!  And she slid to stop just inches away.  And she jumped up and ran all over, so excited to see me!  I realized in that moment just how much I had missed that.  Of course Christy and Midnight missed me during the day and were happy to see me come home, but Christy was going deaf and sometimes didn't realize I was there until she saw me.  And Midnight was never our most social soul.  She preferred to stay under the stairs or in a closet.  That is where she felt the most comfortable.  Their expressions of "happy you're home, Mom!' were a bit more subdued.

But that pure, unadulterated joy on Frankie's face was something to behold.  She was glad to see me and letting me know it!  She made my heart smile!

Those first few months were trying for our Girls.  Frankie wanted to play and Christy and Midnight did not.  Their days of running and chasing balls and such were behind them.  One Saturday morning I was in the kitchen and the three Girls were out in the backyard.  Frankie came bursting through the door with a smile as wide as all of Montana spread across her face and blood running down one side of it.  We scooped her up and headed straight for Dr. Gregg's office.  He cleaned her up and looked her over and then smiled a bit at us.  "You see that little mark on her ear?  I'd bet you anything that is a little Pomeranian nip."

Yep.  Christy had let her know in no uncertain terms that she didn't care how cute Frankie was or how happy her running around made Mom and Dad feel, she, Christy, was still the Queen Bee and Frankie needed to understand that and get used to it.

Not long after that we had Frankie out on walk, trying to burn through some energy, I'm sure, and when we got back I saw something sticking out from underneath one of Frankie's back paws.  It just looked like a leaf to me so I start tugging on it to get it off and she snatched and foot and started limping to get away.  Once again, it was off to Dr. Gregg's office.  I learned something that day - dogs can slip their pads on their paws, and she had done it.  (Never had a dog before or since that has ever done that, and we have raised, to date, 14.)   So we took her home and Billy carried her up the stairs and placed her on the bed.  She milked that hurt paw for weeks!  Billy would carry her down for breakfast and to go out and then carry her back up again.

October 2004 saw the addition of Patches (about 4 months old) to our family and March 2005 added Maggie (around 7 months old.)  Frankie could not have been happier to have playmates!  So yes, we added three puppies in about a year's time but that was good.  The Three Amigos, as called them, loved each other and played together and, for the most part, ignored Christy and Midnight which was fine with them.

Christy left us in October 2005 and left the leadership reins to Frankie.  Again, Midnight didn't really have much to do with anyone so she was fine with it. 

Frankie saw the additions of Scooter and Sadie in 2007, Riley in 2008, Doozer in 2010, Gabby in 2012, Micky in 2015, and Spencer in 2017.  (Hence the new phrase the Tanksley Thundering Herd) Frankie welcomed them all, and usually let them know very quickly that she was the Queen Bee now and they needed to understand their place.  With her, though, no nipping, only warning barks.  She took great pleasure in letting everyone else finish their meals and then eating hers right in front of them, barking every few bites to tell them to back off, there would be no leftovers.

As much as she loved everyone, sometimes you could just tell she wished she had had the chance to be an only child.

Frankie left us July 13, 2019.  She was reunited with her other Amigos (Patches left in 2015 and Maggie in 2017).    She once again saw Christy and Midnight and Riley and Scooter, whom she had lived with, as well as Stormy and Molly that were part of the Girls before Frankie came along.

She was blessed to just pass of old age.  She had had a couple of fatty tumors that she carried around for over ten years.  She had worked through kidney disease where sometimes she would only eat if Billy or I handfed her. But after almost sixteen years her little body just gave out.

She held court over her "subjects" from the center of our king-sized bed and, later when she could no longer jump up that high, from a couch in our bedroom.

She was Riley's buddy and would stay with him in the bedroom so he wouldn't be alone while everyone else was out running around.  She could de-squeak any dog toy in no time flat and typically never disturbed the stuffing in the process.  Even the toughest line of toys were no match for her.

She was our sweetheart, our Princess.

We both still look for her on her bed in the bedroom every time we walk in.  I keep looking for her Phantom-of-the-Opera masked face to peek around a corner.  We are struggling to stop at five when we take our headcount each night.  Those last few days were all about her.  She had grown very finicky in the last few months and what she would eat one day she wouldn't the next.  We would cook hamburgers, hot dogs, smoked sausages and she might take a bite and then come stare in my eyes like she was starving, begging to be fed,  for a bite of my string cheese.   We would get excited that a hamburger had worked one day and then dejected the next would should wouldn't even sniff one.  We even got to the point where we went the cat food route because I had always heard that the stinkier the better if you're trying to get them to eat.  We bought Ensure and baby food and I fed her with a syringe.  You know in your heart of hearts that you are reaching the end, but I kept wanting to feed her just in case.  Maybe her tummy was just upset and she'd start eating tomorrow?  I woke up once on that last Thursday night and saw Billy sleeping on the floor next to her.  On Friday night, I did the same.  We had tried to get her to go out Friday afternoon, me supporting her back half with a robe belt - similar to how I had all those years ago - but she wasn't walking well at that point.  Saturday morning I stayed on the floor next to her.  We had the room dark and cool.  And we waited. It's a tough thing, waiting on a loved one to pass. I watched her breathe.  I stroked her side and whispered in her ear that it was okay to go.  I promised her that I would take care of her daddy, and he would take care of everyone else.  And we waited.  All of our other Herd members were laying around the room and were totally silent and still. 

At 10:10 that Saturday morning she breathed her last.  I kept thinking that maybe I was feeling a faint heartbeat, but it was only my own pulse from pressing so hard, wanting so desperately to be wrong.

She was gone.

Like the others, she has been cremated.  Billy picked her up this past Friday and brought her home and handed her to me.  Just like he had over 15 years ago.  Only this time instead of being wrapped in towels she was covered with purple paper and tucked into a small treasure chest.  Fitting for one that brought so many riches and such joy into our lives.

We love you, Frankie Girl!  And we miss you.  Fly high and free.