TOM AND DIANA IN HER BETTER DAYS

We are watching our dog Diana, who is 17 years old, deteriorate slowly. It's painful and depressing to see our once lively companion in such a sad way. She sleeps most of the time, but she still eats, drinks, and potties outside. She's losing weight because she eats much less than when she was healthier. Diana is deaf, has only one eye, and is nearly blind in the one. She has severe arthritis, but we give her anti-inflammatory medication every day, and she doesn't seem to be in pain. She's also on medication for failing kidney function.

Our benchmarks are if she stops eating, or can't get up, or can't walk, then it's time. Also, the weight loss is a concern. Most likely, we will pay a visit next week to one of our wonderful and compassionate veterinarians for an opinion about her weight.

Diana is in love with Tom at the moment. On the days when he works at the boat museum, she is obviously depressed, doesn't eat, and sleeps most of the day until he comes home in the late afternoon. On the days he's home, she eats better and follows him around wherever he goes until she decides it's time for a nap.

I miss my walks with Diana.  She still gets excited when she sees or hears or smells the leash, but she goes only a short way down the street now, and sometimes not even that far, sometimes only to the end of the driveway. That was our time, and that is gone.  I think she functions more by smell now, since the other two senses are pretty much gone.
   
The time is much more difficult than I had imagined. Rusty, who came before Diana, had lymphoma, and his decline was much faster, but I suppose one should not expect to be cheerful during a death watch.  I find I'm grieving for her before she is gone.  Grief will have its way, and I can do nothing else but go with it and love her as long as she is with us.

WHAT OBAMA AND THE CONGRESS SHOULD BE DOING

It was on this day in 1933 that newly inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt called a special session of Congress and began the first hundred days of enacting his New Deal legislation. For the next several months, bills were passed almost daily, beginning with the Emergency Banking Act, followed by federal programs such as the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

As part of the New Deal's cultural programs, grouped together as Federal One, the Roosevelt administration created the Federal Writers' Project, which employed more than 6,600 out-of-work writers, editors, and researchers — among them Zora Neale Hurston, John Cheever, Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, Studs Terkel, and Ralph Ellison — and paid them subsistence wages of around $20 a week. The main occupation of the Federal Writers' Project was the American Guides Series. There was an American Guide for each of the existing states of the time, as well as Alaska, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and several major cities and highways. Not mere travel guidebooks, they were also collections of essays on various subjects from geography and history to architecture and commerce.

Perhaps not these same programs, but the country needs similar stimulus to put people back to work, help them pay their bills, and put money in their pockets to buy stuff, all of which will help the economy recover.  Plus, our infrastructure is in dire needs of repair.  All the programs mentioned above left behind positive legacies.

The stock market is booming, and corporations are making record profits, but poverty in the country grows and grows.  Something is wrong with this picture, and austerity is not the answer, nor is the deficit a major concern at this time.  Those who constantly bray about reducing the deficit do not live in the real world.  If the economy recovers, the deficit will fall.

The present Republican Party is using the deficit as an excuse to meet their goal, which is to destroy social welfare programs in the country.  Of course, when their own areas are in need of federal help, the Republican politicians are first in the begging line.

 

LIMITATIONS

David Hayward - “the need to leave” (watercolor on paper, 7″x10″)

Limitations...

...of age

...of arthritis

...of energy

...of time

Contrary to the words of the poet, it is not, as they say, satisfactory...at least not yet for me and may require a lengthy period of adjustment.  I think of Walter Cronkite's sign-off, "And that's the way it is."  Except for loosening of time constraints, the other limitations are unlikely to change for the better.  The task is to keep them at bay for as long as possible, so they don't worsen too quickly.  And what is too quickly?  Well, too quickly to suit me, who doesn't care for the limitations at all.

At the age of 78, I'm bound to think of mortality and view the future as somewhat compressed, right?  Some folks, like Grandpère, live in denial of the reality of death, but when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 51, I looked death in the face, and there was no turning back to denial.  To me, it's both funny and tragic when people deny death.  I'll never forget the time I told GP, "The death rate is 100%," and he said, "For whom?"  My black humor did not go over well.

Anyway, I'm easing into a completely different mindset about life in general and my own life.  There are so many things that I want to do and so many changes that I want to see happen before I die, but I know I will not do or see most of them, and I must come to acceptance and ease with the reality.  The difficulty is to sort out the priorities of what is still possible to do and move out of stasis.

If you detect a pinch of depression in my diary post, you are probably correct.  It's there lurking at the edge, but I've not yet fully acknowledged and accepted it yet.  We've experienced a good deal of turmoil and distress in our extended family, and, though the situations have improved, I feel I'm allowed a bit of depression now that things are looking up...if that makes any sense.  My depression is not severe, the descent into a black hole sort, so I carry on in hopes that this, too, shall pass.

To all that I've written here, I must add that it's my faith that lifts me and carries me.  The knowledge that I have praying friends who will support me through the tough times, is of inestimable value.  Without my sense of God's presence, I'd face all of what happened recently and all of what's going on now with much more angst, (though angst there was and is) and much less equanimity, and so I say, "Thanks be to God."

You’ve got your limitations; let them sing,
And all your life will waken with a cry:
Why should you halt when rapture’s on the wing
And you’ve no limit but the cloud-flocked sky?...  

(From "Limitations" by Siegfried Sassoon)

Easy for you to say at the age of 34, Sassoon, but not so easy to practice when you're 78.  Still, the thought is worth a place in my mind, and the ideal is worth a reach.

The lovely painting at the head of the post is by David Hayward aka nakedpastor.   He posted the painting noting that it was available for purchase.  I waited a few days, but I found the painting irresistible and bought it.  In the poem beneath the painting, David says:

You’ve kept your place. You’ve held your ground. You’ve filled your space. You’ve stayed in bounds.
But something calls. You know you must. You forsake all. You will be blessed.
It’s time to go. It’s time to leave. This much you know: this is your peace.

The wonderful painting caused me to reflect on life, how we are always in motion, leaving and forsaking, traveling, and arriving at new places and eventually led to this post, for better or for worse.
 

PLEASE PRAY FOR ARKANSAS HILBILLY

Our friend Arkansas Hillbilly is very down today and needs our prayers and encouragement. Pop over and tell him that you care.

O God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of sufferers: Mercifully accept our prayers, and grant to your servant David the help of your power for relief from his depression, that his sickness may be turned into health, and our sorrow into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

BLAKE EDWARDS AND HIS GREAT GREAT DANE

Blake Edwards, a writer and director who was hailed as a Hollywood master of screwball farces and rude comedies like “Victor/Victoria” and the “Pink Panther” movies, died Wednesday night in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 88.

An anecdote from Edwards life:

A lifelong depressive, Mr. Edwards told The New York Times in 2001 that at one point his depression was so bad that he became “seriously suicidal.” After deciding that shooting himself would be too messy and drowning too uncertain, he decided to slit his wrists on the beach at Malibu while looking at the ocean. But while he was holding a two-sided razor, his Great Dane started licking his ear, and his retriever, eager for a game of fetch, dropped a ball in his lap. Trying to get the dog to go away, Mr. Edwards threw the ball, dropped the razor and dislocated his shoulder. “So I think to myself,” he said, “this just isn’t a day to commit suicide.” Trying to retrieve the razor, he stepped on it and ended up in the emergency room.

A harlequin Great Dane

No, this is not Blake Edwards' Great Dane. The photo is from Wikipedia.

Anecdote from the New York Times.

Thanks to Ann for the link to the story.