Adding Injury to Insult…

When I was a small child, I was inordinately frightened by dogs.  I have this clear memory of walking down a sidewalk in Sandy, Utah, and looking straight ahead to see a Golden Retriever walking beside its owner.  My immediate response was to scream at the top of my lungs and run as fast as my toddler legs could carry me, climbing up my dad’s body like it was a jungle gym.  Naturally, the dog heard the scream and ran after me like I was a chew toy, thereby exacerbating my hysteria and perpetuating my fear.

My parents owned two Scottish terriers when I was born, and I wouldn’t go near them.  When I wanted to play on the swing-set in our backyard, my barely-older sister would round up the dogs like she was herding cattle and secure them in a gated area next to the house.  “Meggie!” she would yell, “You can come out now!”

My mom has always had funny maternal instincts about these types of things.  Like when she realized that I didn’t like beans, she started making chili, seven-bean salad, and pork-n-beans for dinner on some kind of regular rotation.  And it worked!  Now, I’ll eat anything.  And so, she was determined to fix the dog-fear thing.  One day, she called me into the kitchen, and as I walked my little body around the counter, I saw her sitting beside our peppiest pooch, Daisy.  Only, this time, Daisy was calmly sitting beside my mom, who told me to come closer and try petting the dog.  I was petrified, my hand was trembling, but before I could back away, my mom placed her hand over mine and helped me pet that soft, bristly fur for the first time.  It must have lasted ten seconds.  But it changed my life forever, for the better.

I rarely meet a dog now that I don’t like, that I don’t love, that I don’t want to bring home with me.  Big dogs, small dogs, loud dogs, quiet dogs, jumpy dogs, calm dogs, longhaired, shorthaired: I love ‘em all.  A friend of ours here at seminary once said, “If I meet someone who doesn’t like dogs, I feel like I can’t trust them.”  And while I have quite a few friends who don’t like dogs and (yet) who I trust, Peter and I knew just what our friend meant.

Daisy was a special dog to me.  Bono is a constant source of joy for me.  But there is one dog in my life who has been a gift of the highest order, a kind of non-human soulmate.  This dog is the dog I grew up with, the dog that welcomed me whenever I returned home.  This dog would curl up into a little dog-ball on any unsuspecting lap that was available.  This dog stood watch and guarded the door to the room that held my mother’s sick body battling cancer and chemo.  This dog greeted my dad with yelps of joy and games of wrestling as soon as my dad walked in the door after his long commute from work.  This dog sat dutifully at my feet while I played the piano and wrote music.  This dog kept his respectful distance from my sister, who he knew wasn’t overly fond of him (though he loved her all the same).

This dog’s name is Guy, though we tried to name him “Tex.”  But, he was stubborn.  He knew his name was Guy, and he refused to answer to anything other than a one-syllable word that contained the long “i” vowel sound.  Although, we usually extended his name over two syllables: “Gaw-eye”.  You get the idea.

Say what you will about dogs and their brain size, but Guy was the smartest dog I’ve ever known, smarter than some humans I have known, for sure.  For a long time, he understood himself to be the canine alarm clock that had to ensure everyone was awake and out the door when they were supposed to be.  So, as soon as he deemed it was time, he would trot up and down the hardwood flooring in the hallway with all the bedrooms.  His nails, even when trimmed, would make a distinctive “click, click, click” sound that would eventually wake everyone up–sometimes rather irritatedly, especially since Guy seemed not to believe in the concept of a weekend.

Guy loved us, his fragile and fallen family.  He made every effort to be in the same room as his people, and he would make the rounds to ensure that everyone felt his love equally, even if we were scattered around the house.  He loved us, and he knew that we were his caretakers and that we loved him.  When my mom would go outside in the front yard to garden, Guy was her faithful companion, perfectly content to sit nearby and observe.  He never needed a leash.  He never wanted to leave us.  A few times, my mom would come back inside the house and forget that Guy was still outside.  It would dawn on her minutes later, and she open the door to find Guy, at the front door, waiting for her to remember.  Then, he’d trot back inside.

My mom and dad love Guy so much.  But my dad and he shared a very special bond.  My dad said it was because they were the only Guys in the family; they had to stick together.  My dad called him my brother, and if I ever dared come inside the house without immediately greeting Guy, my dad would sternly say, “Hey, say hello to your brother!”  And Guy was my dad’s shadow.  He slept wherever my dad slept, and he would only eat his dinner when my dad finally sat down to eat.

These last two and a half months have been almost indescribably devastating ones for my dad.  And for my mom.  And, old as he got, losing his hearing, his sight, his keen intellect, Guy filled their otherwise empty nest with the love and loyalty that only he could.

And on Tuesday, my mom and dad had to bury our precious and favorite family member.

Guy, we miss you so much.  Our hearts are truly broken.

Becoming like a little child

This past summer I served as the Pastoral Intern at Trinity Covenant Church in Livingston, New Jersey, about an hour north (sans traffic) of our apartment in Princeton. As I was driving to church early one Sunday morning, I began to pray for the service at which I was to preach. Preaching is one of those bizarre creative activities that kind of takes on a life of its own. A preacher goes through several phrases of preparation– reading the Scripture passage, thinking about the Scripture passage, playing with the Scripture passage, ignoring the Scripture passage, resenting the Scripture passage, returning to the Scripture passage, making amends with the Scripture passage, falling in love with the Scripture passage, becoming obsessed with the Scripture passage, seeing applications of the Scripture passage everywhere, etc. Then she writes the sermon. And then the sermon writes her. (There’s Preaching 101 for you).

So I’m driving, right? And I’m praying. And it’s not exactly the holy kind of prayer where every word sounds like a choral anthem, but it’s a prayer, my prayer. You see, I’m concerned because my preaching preparation has led me into dangerous territory. I’m worried that the words that I’m going to say will sound like a child trying to soothe a parent over something that the child is too young or too protected to understand. So I say things like “Lord, make these words your words” and “Don’t let anyone look down on me because I’m young (or female).”

You see, I was preaching about trusting God through financial hardship, through markets collapsing and jobs being lost and bills needing payment and 401Ks going kaput. And since I am just a wee lass and I live a life of student-simplicity and I don’t have money in the market or a retirement plan or a house to lose or bills I can’t pay…

The service went well. The sermon went well. When it was over, I got back in my car and headed back to Princeton. I thanked God for the help.

The next day, Peter and I got up early, walked Bono, and made breakfast together– coffee, eggs, bagels and cream cheese, fruit. We set up my laptop, logged into our Netflix account, and settled in to eat breakfast and to watch a movie. About halfway through the show, my phone rang. It was my dad. He asked if I was home, in his stern, concerned voice, which is never a good sign. I said I was.

Then he told me.

He told me that he had been laid off. He told me that the fifteen-year-old company that had employed him for the last eleven years unceremoniously gathered together a hodge-podge group of its employees for a meeting. My dad told me that he walked into the meeting and knew something bad was about to happen when he surveyed the room and knew that there was no reason why he would be meeting with this group of people. He told me that a newly-hired “consultant” stood in front of the group of people, and, declining to show any graciousness, said, “You have worked your last day for ——-.”

People cried, people raged, people sat, shell-shocked. My dad didn’t tell me what he did. But when I visited a few weeks ago, I saw the two boxes of belongings that he packed, still in the trunk of his car, unmoved. One is filled with pictures- pictures of his beloved deceased beagle, pictures of my sister, of my mother, of me. The other is filled with mementos and copies of his professional life at the company- the magazines he wrote all the copy for, the interviews he conducted, the awards he received. He didn’t tell me what he did when he heard the news, but I know that part of what he did was pack those two boxes and place them in his car, like a man who has just been thrown out of the house he helped build by the partner who chose him. Heartbroken.

He has been driving around with the weight of those two boxes in his car for over two months now. He drove with them back and forth, to his neighborhood public library and home again, using the library’s computer and Internet to apply for jobs. Over 120 of them.

He drove with the boxes to the DFW airport, to pick me up when I visited and drive me back when I left. He drove with the boxes back and forth to Best Buy to endure the worst customer service experience either of us has ever dealt with in order to purchase a desktop computer and get set up with high-speed Internet access at home. He drove with those boxes in the trunk and his youngest daughter in the passenger seat. I joked that I had to bring my parents at last into the 21st century. I set up the computer. I showed him how to work it. And now his car, with the boxes, sits in the driveway at the house while he answers ads, surfs Craigslist, and composes cover letter after cover letter. Over 140 of them, now.

My dad is 61 years old. He’s a writer. He is near retirement age, but he is not near retirement. He is not anywhere near it. Because the way it works, friends, is that when a person retires, (s)he retires from the work (s)he was doing, and lives (mainly) off the money that was saved during the time (s)he was working. And so, my dad is 61 years old. And unemployed.

And I am sad. I am sad because I know that part of the weight contained in those boxes is a burden that I can’t comprehend, like a child trying to soothe a parent over something that the child is too young or too protected to understand.

No, I am not dead. Nor is Elvis.

I have received some complaints due to my participation paucity on this blog.

My bad.  It’s been a hard summer.

I’m working on something quite nice for you folks, coming to you soon.

For now, enjoy this.

Love,

MDK, jr.