Gratitude

                                                           by Laura Crum

            It’s hard for me to talk about gratitude right now. There are many days when I feel very, very sad. I miss my husband so much. When a friend said to me the other day that I was lucky, I almost choked.

            “Lucky?” I demanded. “How can you say that?”

            Now this is a good friend who knows me well. He knows the details of my life. He knows my home, he knows I don’t need to work, he knows my son, and he sees what our day to day life is like. He knew my husband very well. He said, “Most people would give a lot to have what you have.”

            I stopped and thought about this. “Most people would not want this at the price of the grief I must bear,” I said.

            “Most people would not see it that way,” he said. “They would say that you’ll get over the loss of your husband and move on with your life, and you still have a beautiful life. A lovely home that you own free and clear, a good son, some nice animals including three fine horses, a wonderful garden, financial freedom. Most people would assume that you could find another husband if you wanted.”

            “But I don’t want,” I said. “I cannot imagine wanting that. Andy was and is the only man I ever truly wanted. And I was happy with him. Even now, I feel his presence and that is more important to me than any other man’s company.”

            My friend shrugged. “I still say you’re lucky. Most people never feel that way about a husband or wife. They never have that experience of being with someone who truly makes them happy. Even though Andy died sooner than you might have hoped for, you had seventeen years together and you loved each other and enjoyed your life together. Andy was a happy man. And he left you the means to go on with your life without financial stress—because he cared about his family. You say you still feel him with you in dreams and signs. I don’t know anything about that, but if it’s true, it’s surely a sign of his continuing love—a love that has lasted past death. How many people have any experience of that? I still say you’re lucky.”

            I thought about that a long time. Long after my friend finished his whiskey and soda and left. The roses are blooming and I picked a bunch of them to put on Andy’s grave the next morning. I wandered around, looking at the horses and the pond and the many flowers. I knew my cozy little house waited to receive me, and my son was inside. Dinner, made by a friend, was warm in the oven. Last night I dreamed of Andy, wearing his kilt and getting ready to play his bagpipes for a group of people. He came to me and kissed me and he was happy. In that moment I was happy, too. He comes to me in dreams many nights—he sends me messages that seem very clear.

            We all die. It’s just a matter of when. If there is anything that counts, it’s whatever transcends death. This is true, was always true, whether Andy died when he did or he lived to be ninety. When I walk around the graveyard and look at all the gravestones I understand how brief our mortal life is—even if we do live to be 90. My grandmother lived to be 97 and she is just as dead as my mother, who lived to be 65. At this point it doesn’t seem to make much difference how long each of them spent in their body. What is present past death is the only reality. And so it is for both Andy and me. What counts is our love for each other, and whatever part of us can/may transcend our deaths.

 We all have grief to bear in our lives. There is not one person that I know who doesn’t struggle in some way. A lovely single woman that I know holds down a decent job—forty hours a week plus-- and takes all the part-time work she can find. She can barely afford rent on a studio apartment in someone’s backyard here in pricey Santa Cruz County, California. That and her car payment (for a nice reliable little Toyota) leave her without any extra money at all. She cannot imagine that a life such as I have could ever come to her. To own her own place, not to have to work, not to worry about money…this is unimaginable. She once admitted that she would take my grief and have my life. And she pointed out, as my other friend did, that at least I have had a true partner. She never has had this experience and now, at forty years old, she worries that she never will. It makes me think.

Everyone must struggle eventually. I know another beautiful woman who must bear being estranged from her young adult daughter—not by her choice, not for anything she did wrong, but simply because her daughter needs to do this right now. It is a constant grief. I know a man whose wife stepped off a curb on her way out of a restaurant the other day, and fell and hit her head and died of this injury. I knew a woman of thirty who died of a rare form of cancer—she had a two year old child. I know another woman whose only son died on his 11^th birthday in a freak accident. Yet another woman that I knew (ten years younger than me and in apparent good health) had a completely unexpected heart attack; over a year later and she cannot walk, speak clearly, eat, or sit up unassisted, and her family, including two young daughters, must both care for her and deal with the enormous financial burden her tragedy has placed on their family. Just a few weeks ago four teenagers died in a car wreck not a city block away from my driveway—I pass their roadside shrine every day. I have a friend who struggles with constant poor health and has no money to seek the treatments she feels might help her. I know so many people whose lives are so hectic in the endless need to make money to pay their bills that they never have a calm moment. In short, we all struggle. My life, taken all in all, has been a very good one.

            It is so easy to feel sorry for myself right now. But maybe I should feel grateful. I am working on this.

The Ongoing Dilemma

                                                            by Laura Crum

            I have a dilemma. It’s been this way for over a year now. And I am not finding a solution. I don’t think there is a solution. But it bugs me every single day.

            You see, I have a 34 year old horse that I love very much. This is Gunner. I have owned him since he was three.

 I broke and trained this horse myself and competed on him at many events. He’s been with me for over thirty years.

Here he is last summer—not looking too bad for 33.

But every day now I go through a roller coaster ride of emotions concerning Gunner. There are two “sides” arguing in my head. It’s not good horse owner versus not-good horse owner—it’s more like two types of good horse owner. Let’s call them type A and type B. They never shut up in my mind.

A: “You should put that poor old horse down. He’s limps every step he takes. He’s old and frail and it’s just a matter of time till he goes down and can’t get up. You should put him down now.”

B: “How can you put him down? He’s bright-eyed, eager for his meals, has gained weight in the last few months. The painkillers keep him reasonably comfortable. Yeah, he’s lame, but he still breaks into a trot voluntarily and he moves around his corral very freely. He gets down and rolls and gets up again every day. He doesn’t look unhappy. Why would you put him down?”

A: “Sure he trots, but you can’t stand to watch him do it. Because half the time when he trots he stumbles on that arthritic knee and almost goes down. You’ve watched him go all the way down half a dozen times and it almost killed you. It didn’t help him, either. He always walked off lamer. Even when he stumbles and catches himself he walks off lamer. Put him down before he falls down once too often and breaks his leg and suffers.”

B: “But he doesn’t want to let go of his life yet. Every time I go down to the barnyard he spots me and goes to his gate and bumps it with his nose to let me know he wants me to let him out to graze. He loves his grazing time, he likes being groomed and getting attention, he’s cleaning up as much senior feed as he ever has. He’s not ready to quit.”

A: “But maybe it’s time you made that choice for him. He’s got a lot of heart and he keeps trying, but do you want him to try and try until he CAN’T do it any more? Why would you put him through that?”

B: “I guess if it were me I wouldn’t want my life taken until I was ready to let go of it. And maybe he would rather keep trying as long as he can. Gunner doesn’t limp any more than our 80 year old friend Wally, and Wally can look pretty frail and shaky, too, walking along—and you’ve seen Wally stumble and fall several times. But Wally still enjoys his life very much—why would you suppose that Gunner is different? The last time I had the vet out here, thinking maybe I would put Gunner down, that old horse trotted away from the vet at a pretty brisk clip. I swear he could read my mind. And the vet said, ‘I don’t think he’s ready.’ That’s just it. I don’t think he’s ready. And I have to wait until he tells me he’s ready.”

A: “Are you going to think you made the right choice when you come down to feed one morning and find Gunner lying on the ground…and you know he lay there for hours in pain?”

B: “I don’t know. I know I have not yet felt it was the right choice to pick up the phone and call the vet and end Gunner’s life. Not when the old horse looks as bright as he does.”

A: “But you are afraid every time you go down to the barnyard. Afraid that Gunner will be dead…or worse. For every time that you smile when you see him playing with his neighbor, there are three times you wince when you see him take a bad step.”

B: “But he does still play with his neighbor. He does still enjoy life.”

A: “He’s a huge management headache. You can’t turn his neighbor/friend horse out to graze because Gunner freaks out. If Gunner weren’t here, all your other horses could be turned loose to graze virtually every day and they would have a MUCH better quality of life.”

B: “That’s true. But I can’t put Gunner down because he’s a management problem. I owe him more than that, and I love him.”

A: “Maybe you should make the hard choice out of love for him.”

B: “Dammit, I would, if I thought it was the right choice. But how can I give up on him before he’s ready to give up?”

And so it goes, on and on. Type A is the pragmatic, logical side of me and type B is the more sentimental, intuitive side. So far type B is winning, but it’s a struggle. I know there are valid points on both sides.

The thing is that I have never put one of my loved horses down until it was a clear cut thing. Flanigan colicked at 21 and didn’t come out of it after being treated for over 24 hours. He wasn’t a candidate for surgery because he had a diaphragmatic hernia. And if we weren’t going to attempt surgery it seemed clear that it was time to end his suffering.

Burt had a stroke at 35 and was down on the ground twitching and I couldn’t get him up. When we still couldn’t get him up after an hour of trying and the vet’s help (and the vet was clear she thought he wasn’t coming out of it), I had no questions about what to do.

Toby was diagnosed with a tumor in his kidneys. He’d had two previous run-ins with cancer. When I decided against surgery, I kept him as comfortable as I could with painkillers, and when he quit eating, refused treats, and began grinding his teeth, I had the vet out that afternoon. Again, I knew it was time.

            I’ve always waited until it was clear. I’ve never arbitrarily drawn a line in the sand. I watched my friend Wally do this with his good horse, Pistol, and though I understood and did not feel it was a wrong choice, I’m not sure it is the choice I would have made.

            So yeah, I don’t know what to do. I muddle along, day by day, waiting for Gunner to tell me. So far it hasn’t happened. But I look away when he trots, afraid that he will fall again. I wince when he takes a bad step. I walk down to feed every morning looking anxiously for Gunner, hoping that he is OK.

            Yes, I smile when I see him playing with his neighbor horse, or dozing companionably alongside his old buddy, muzzle to muzzle. I try to get him out to graze as much as I can, and it’s clear that he is very keen to do this. I’m happy that his spirit is strong and he’s cleaning up his feed. I watch him roll and get back up and think, well, OK, then. I’m very grateful that he’s still with me and still bright-eyed and willing to engage with me and the other horses. But still…I wonder. I wonder if I am doing the right thing.