Blessed Soul

I have heard there are two kinds of Labrador, the English and the American variety. The English variety, big-headed and stalky, is what Bud was. Our five-year-old lab Shoe is apparently the American variety, a field dog with smaller head and body and a more wiry temperament. Shoe was hard to get used to at first after Bud, but at five years old, Shoe is obedient, adorable, and perpetually happy. This story, however, is about his predecessor.

Bud was eleven weeks old when we moved together into my new house in West Berkeley. The house was sagging and badly in need of renovation, and I slept on a futon on the living room floor while I helped the contractors and painters jack up, support, and paint the house. Every morning at five, Buddy would rise and whimper until I too rose and took him out for a walk. And every morning as his head towered above the futon, I swear my pup’s skull had grown another two inches in the night.

Bud was five months old when he accompanied me on a solo trek in the Desolation Wilderness. His five-month old legs were so tired when we reached our first night’s destination that he curled up in the one level spot in our camp and did not move even when I pitched the tent on top of him. That night as I crawled into my sleeping bag, he stood outside the tent with his head inside the opening, waiting to be invited in. I patted the floor of the tent, and he curled up against my down bag.

The next day when we hiked farther into the wilderness, eventually lost the trail and wandered scared in the woods, arriving back in camp eighteen miles later in the near dark, I discovered the fundamental truth about our dogs: they will follow us to the ends of the earth or until their own deaths, whichever comes first.

Buddy’s pads had rubbed raw somewhere in those eighteen miles, but he limped with me to the end. Twelve years later he spent an entire Sunday afternoon running between two guys throwing a frisbee on the beach. (In all his years he never lost hope that with his short legs he might catch one.) The next morning, with acute tendonitus in a shoulder and knee, hip displasia, and unbeknownst to us, cancer in the lungs, Bud decided to trek back toward Capitola in hopes of rekindling his day on the beach. Despite having lost his cajones years earlier, Bud, his legs too short to jump a fence, dug his way under our gate to pursue his wanderings. That Monday morning he delivered the newspaper to the front porch, and seeing no action coming from the house, headed down the block to his favorite dumpster behind Tacos Morenos. Returning long enough to bury a package of tortillas in the back yard, he observed that there was still no action coming from the house and headed off toward Capitola.

When the SPCA picked him up in the afternoon, he was within blocks of his destination at Potbelly Beach. Blue drove to the SPCA to retrieve him. Blue arrived just as our dog was lapping from a bucket of cool water and accepting a biscuit from the SPCA employee who escorted him to his jail cell. We had hoped for a more stringent prison life for our escapee, but the only punishment went to us: a fat fine to bail him out.

That summer when we took our annual family vacation to Huntington Lake, I noticed what I had not in the chaos of home life, that Buddy had lost a lot of weight. His ribs were showing, and when we arrived in the mountains, he lay down outside the car and didn’t move. The altitude was too much for what turned out to be the mastosis covering his lungs, and I took him down the mountain to the vet in Auberry, where he was immediately more comfortable.

Monday morning the vet called me to confirm what she had suspected about his red blood cell count, and asked if I would consider putting him to sleep.

“If you’re sure he’s going to die,” I said.

“I’m sure,” she said.

It was a blessing to have a week in the mountains to say goodbye to a beloved friend. I drove back down to Auberry remembering the night Bud was a pup, and he slept in my lap on the drive back home across the Bay Bridge.

The vet told me dogs sometimes let out a moan or a sigh right before they die, but Bud in his typical fashion laid his head between his paws and waited while she injected him. I could still feel his heartbeat when she said he was gone. Too mellow to make a sound, he passed into death without a fight, and I stood outside his cage sobbing and calling his name, as if by calling up who he was I could bring him back.

Blessed souls die quietly, the breath just stopping, a Buddhist text says, and Buddy was blessed.

A year or two before he died, Buddy lost his hearing, and I learned to communicate without spoken language. When it was time for a walk I whistled, he lifted his head, I patted my side, and he came. Words of the Bible, the text I deem sacred, do not fit the spirit of the animal: spiritual in the unspoken.

A week after Buddy died, I packed his ashes in the bicycle bag and rode along the cool windy coast to Potbelly Beach, where my family was waiting for me. Together with some of his canine and human friends, we spilled his ashes into the ocean. "Spread" is the not the word for what the ashes really did. They bunched in the bag, blew back at me in the wind, and clung to my legs. So it was that Bud stayed with me, messy and gristly and sticking to the salt water on my legs.

When we remove a pup from the litter and bring him home, we become his pack. Our dogs are always there. Bud was such a regular part of the school in Oakland where I taught that the staff dedicated the yearbook to him. "In all humility," they wrote, "we dedicate this yearbook to Bud Tatum." They quoted Hermione Gingold, who said this:

“To call him a dog hardly seems to do him justice, though
in as much as he had four legs, a tail and barked I admit he was,
to all outward appearances. But to those of us who knew him
well, he was a perfect gentleman.”

An Amazing Teacher

Blue and I learned first-hand that our nation's public schools were chalk full of teachers who performed miracles on a daily basis, often with only their students as witnesses. Both our children were blessed with good teachers, but Robin came along at a critical juncture in Eliot’s life.

If only the public school system could clone her. She was fun and unflappable. Her magic was based on a simple formula: treat disabled persons with love and dignity, while at the same time challenging them. Robin never let her kids fall back on their disabilities where they had the capacity to grow.

Robin turned on the music, handed her kids instruments, and sang with them. In Robin's classroom, music, art, cooking, doing dishes, and housekeeping were not activities that were set aside when these students entered the elementary grades. While in 2005 these activities were all but dead in our public school programs due to a lack of funding and our focus on standardized tests, they were precisely what activated kids' brains for math and reading. Robin's music, both literally and figuratively, primed her students for learning, and more importantly, made them happy, thriving human beings.

There were times when Eliot's medication wasn't working and he was disruptive, but instead of calling us and telling us to come pick up our son, Robin found a way to work around Eliot's difficulties. Being able to walk away from her classroom in the morning knowing she embraced my son with all of his challenges gave me immeasurable comfort. Despite the havoc her students could wreak, she carried on, and as a result, her students carried on. Robin's classroom was a safe haven for her students and their families.

Parents who are put off by the "extreme sports" atmosphere of the severely handicapped classroom could learn a great deal from a teacher like Robin. She set aside any fears she may have had of communicating with a severely autistic child, and accomplished amazing feats, namely figuring out how to get through to her students.

"I love my new school," Eliot said shortly after joining Robin's classroom. And it's no wonder. We loved Robin too.

After a year and a half in Eliot’s classroom, Robin moved back to San Diego to be close to her family, and her brother who was having a lung transplant. We were crushed to see her go, but grateful she had come into our lives. My faith had taught me that, if she was leaving, there must have been even greater things in store for Eliot.

On Robin’s second to last day in the classroom, Eliot ran away from her, and when another adult went after him, he said he wanted only Robin to chase him.

Watching him run with one arm bent, one arm flailing, and legs whipping like eggbeaters, Robin had a hard time being angry. When she caught up with him she said, “This is not goodbye. We can email each other. And I’ll see you when you come to San Diego this summer.”

That night I showed him the pictures of Robin in action, which I had taken and put in a book as a gift for her. He looked at them for a long time and said, “I want to keep her.”

He also said, “I don’t want to say goodbye to her.”

And, “She fine! She has to stay here and enjoy!”

He spent the rest of the night looking at the pictures. I believe he was saying goodbye.

But she was right. It wasn’t goodbye. We see Robin every summer when she visits us or we visit her. Robin and I keep in regular touch, and as of this year, Eliot has a wonderful new teacher. Best of all, last Spring I nominated Robin for the San Andreas Regional Center’s Teacher of the Year award, and she won. Next weekend she comes up to Northern California, with her husband and grown children, to accept her award. It is good to see a teacher publicly acknowledged for the work she does, so much of the time with no audience but her students bouncing around the room.

Surfing and Massage

Tortilla chips and salsa fresca. Margaritas and salt. Surfing and a massage. These are for me delicious pairings. If all six of these occur in the span of one day, it’s a heavenly experience. But if you had told me two years ago that I would find my masseuse at church I would not have believed you.

I had been treating myself to a massage once a month since I had my babies, until they turned four and seven years old and my beloved masseuese moved to the East Coast. That was when I found out Jeannie was a masseuse. But mentally I could not make the transition from sitting with her on a couch covered in Scotch Presbyterian plaid while the Deacons served tea, to sprawling naked under her hands on a massage table.

Then one day in church she gave me a hug. This quiet unassuming woman who could slip unnoticed from the room hugged like a linebacker. Played fiddle in a Celtic band on Sunday morning as if she were at an Irish wedding. And belted out hymns in the choir as if her singing voice bore no relation to the one we strained to hear when she made an announcement from the pulpit. Suddenly I saw this woman for who she was and I drew one conclusion: deep tissue massage.

The first time she gave me a massage I had to ask her to let up.

Fridays are the days I treat myself. I surf whenever possible on Fridays. I book my massage on Fridays. The best Fridays are the ones where I do both.

Surfing is a physical and spiritual experience that surpasses all others. Surfing requires physical strength. It requires courage and humility, both the ability to take on the hazards inherent in the ocean and the acknowledgment than it is more powerful than you are. Surfing is meditation. It is an activity that allows you to be utterly consumed in the moment. When you are sitting in the lineup, you are focused on the next wave and nothing else.

Surfing is like making love. The more days you surf the more you want to. It is a total sensory experience, where all the nerve endings are awakened and soothed when they are immersed in water. And climbing into bed after surfing, the body is satiated and relaxed and lulled into sleep. Surfing and massage are a perfect combination.

One Friday in June, I drove up the coast from Santa Cruz and surfed a well-known “secret” spot. It turned out to be a good day, with shoulder high sets at about five minute intervals. But when I reached for my wetsuit I realized I had left it at home.

Surfing the Pacific Ocean on Northern California’s coast almost certainly requires a wetsuit. Some souls brave it in shorts or a bikini, but they don’t last an hour. And conditions are windier, colder, and rougher north of Santa Cruz than they are in town. I scoured my van for every piece of warmth, and ended up in the water in a blistering wind, wearing a pair of board shorts, a polar rash guard, hood, and booties. To paddle out there in so little neoprene I had to have been out of mind.

At first I stayed warm catching waves, but the when wind kicked up even stronger and knocked down the waves, I froze. After ten minutes of sitting, I knew if I didn’t catch a wave right away I would be too stiff to paddle. It wouldn’t take long to become hypothermic in those waters. I paddled toward the rocks and caught one inside to the beach.

The sun-warmed sand protected from the wind by a stand of rocks would have thawed me out in no time, but I had a massage to get to. I kept my hood on as I walked back to the van.

Jeannie’s massages were so heavenly I had recently started forking out the extra money for an additional half hour. An hour massage was not long enough. A one and a half hour full body massage was perfect; it left you wanting more but feeling good and relaxed. Relaxed like jelly. Relaxed like driving home you were a hazard on the road.

When I arrived at Jeannie’s house after surfing up the coast in a pair of board shorts, she turned on the heater and gave me a blanket. After a good while I warmed up, except for my “extremities.” Customarily after I have been surfing, she warms towels on the space heater and wraps them around my feet. On this particular day she put the warm towels on my buns.

I told Jeannie right then that she was already the world’s best masseuse, but when she ccreated the bun warmers, she became royalty in my eyes.