When I saw that turd smeared into the sidewalk today, I lost it. Those leavings, a perpetual source of annoyance, are the only thing we have left of him now. They used to bother me, the turds. We were constantly picking them up off the garage floor and sweeping dried ones off the front steps and warning visitors to watch their step. But now, I find myself looking for them, like crusty Easter eggs, evidence that he had existed, that he was real and wonderful and mine. That sweet dog couldn’t help the turds. He was hit by a car when he was just two, and he survived with a broken tail and damaged rectal and bladder nerves. The vet gave us the option to put him down then, but we couldn’t do it. He was just too good. So we decided to put up with the mess. And he was worth Every. Single. Turd. He was always truly with us, whatever we were doing. He collected rocks with my daughter--her favorite pastime. He’d pick them up with his teeth, carry them around, and drop them at our feet, staring up at us as though to say: Do you like it? I picked it out just for you. He would leave them in the garage, much to the annoyance of my husband. But they were his gifts to us, these little leavings, like tiny presents, as sweet as dandelions from a child. He’s gone now, my sweet dog. He passed away this weekend due to complications from those damaged bladder and bowel nerves. But he left so much more than turds and rocks behind. Everything I know about empathy I learned from him. He was simply content to be near me, whatever I was doing, enjoying my presence as I enjoyed his. He was completely selfless, and he could read my moods in that clairvoyant way of dogs. When I needed to cry, he was the first one I went to, because he would simply lay his head against my shoulder and put his giant paw around me, the closest he could get to a hug. He returned my happiness with dopey smiles, and he returned my love with face-sized kisses from his enormous pink tongue. When my grandma died, he licked the tears from my face and nuzzled his head into mine, and I knew that he understood my pain, reaching me in that place beyond species, beyond words. He would sit on top of my toes, placing his foot over mine, claiming me, protecting me, loving me. I was his, and he was mine. So yes, the sight of a dried-out turd on our sidewalk did reduce me to quivering, hiccuping sobs. I’m not ashamed to admit that. While I went inside to attempt to compose myself, my daughter came to me with her tiny hands clasped together. “Ozzy left this for us,” she said, unfurling her fingers to reveal a rock she had found on the garage floor: his final leaving. "We need to keep it." It's in my glass case with the other beautiful leavings I have collected from those I have lost, nestled between my grandpa's pipe and my grandma's elephant figurines. Thank you, Ozzy, for leaving so much of yourself with us. You were the best dog I’ve ever had.
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I grew up in a pretty non-traditional church experience: We met in someone’s garage two counties over. There were maybe 50 people in there, all crammed in, sitting on folding chairs. The little kids just sat on the floor. There were a lot of closed eyes and raised hands and shaking heads and voices shouting “Praise Jesus!”. (Sounds cult-ish, I know. But it wasn’t.)
We didn’t recite any creeds. We didn’t have hymnals. In fact, most of the songs we sang were written by the pastor. The Bible was our only book. There was no “How-To” guide stashed in the back of the pew that explained when to sit, when to stand, and what to say. I always felt a little weird about this growing up. When you live in a small town, you’re defined by the groups you belong to, and I didn’t get to be Catholic or Lutheran or Methodist or “non-religious” like virtually everyone else in my class. And I always thought that maybe my church experiences were less-than because of this. They weren’t “official.” There was no Pope or Diocese to oversee our practices. We had no book to follow along with and guide our participation in the service. Like I said, the Bible was our only book. Whenever I visited other churches, this bothered me. It was rare to see an actual Bible in those churches. Usually, the passages were just printed in the bulletin. So I felt like we were doing it wrong in our garage. Everyone brought their own Bibles in our “church.” And people shared with the “congregation” what they were reading and what learning from it. So there was (and still is) this disconnect for me: the words “Pope” and “Diocese” don’t appear in any Bible I’ve read. There aren’t a lot of instructions in there about conducting an actual church service. The Biblical church, to me, just seemed to be a group of people who loved and supported each other and who weren’t afraid to act out their faith to better the world. (Becauase faith without action is dead.) So I feel like I serve God better in caring for foster children than I do sitting in a pew. (The Bible tells us to care for the fatherless and the widow, but I don’t think it says anything about sitting in a pew.) Likewise, I hate feeling guilty for not volunteering my “time and talents” to pass out bulletins or join church council. I hate feeling guilty for not buying soap for kids in Africa. And I’m not saying that those aren’t worthy causes. I’m just saying that I see a lot of things that churches ignore, either because they’re way too into themselves (“involving” members of the congregation by having them pass the offering tray or hand out wafers) or way too outside themselves (giving money to foreign missionaries). They miss the needs that are right here, right now. Churches are missing the needs of their own communities because so many of their programs stay within their church walls. They want people to come to them. They don’t go out to meet those needs. They are fine sending a single family to North Korea or Borneo or Fiji and supporting them with money and prayers and school supplies and stuff that was bound for the Salvation Army anyway. But it is rare to see people step out within their own communities to make a difference, especially if those who need help don’t “belong” to to the “right” religion. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen -- our community just saw a beautiful example of people coming together to support a family in need that crossed boundaries of denomination. But it is rare. I didn’t realize how much need there was until we started doing foster care, until we jumped into that trench and started to interact with people who needed real help with real things: Basic education. Life skills, like cooking. Money, time, and resource management. Hygiene. Sobriety. I live outside a town of 2,500 people, and there is plenty of need right here. And I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable going to church where they expend more effort in finding someone to read scripture next Sunday than they do in meeting the needs that are just outside their walls. Fostering has made this strange patchwork of what was once our tidy family quilt: some patches are whipstitched and later removed; others are embroidered to become part of the existing pattern. But those patches were never part of the initial fabric, and they never will be, because they were torn from another quilt.
It’s easy to look at the ragged edges and think, “What an awful ______ you came from, you poor thing.” The biological parents are often cast as the villains: “Oh, how horrible that they did ______. They shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. It’s just unfair/wrong/unjust/whathaveyou.” I’ve heard it a thousand times. (I’ve said it a thousand times.) But the child still looks at those ragged edges and misses and longs for that other family quilt, and those feelings are real. Undoubtedly, the child has some good memories, no matter how dysfunctional the family situation was. But even knowing that it wasn't all bad is sometimes hard for me. I’ll admit, it’s pretty painful to hear my foster daughter say, “I miss my mom/dad/grandma,” especially when she calls me mom. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “I’m just playing at this mom thing; she'll never see me as her real mom.” Because even after her adoption is finalized, there will always be years of the child’s life that we were never part of. She was initially sewn into another family quilt. I can only accept this fact. I can’t pretend the past doesn’t exist, so I’ve come to the conclusion that I just have to learn to honor that other quilt. Seeing her parents as villains might have been my initial gut reaction. But I have to remember that she doesn’t share that view, regardless of what happened. So this Christmas, I am taking another look. I am trying to see them not as villains, but as human beings who just...couldn’t keep their shit together. That makes it easier to see why our foster daughter is so attached to the frayed edges of her family quilt square and sometimes so resistant to being sewn into ours. I’m taking small steps to honor her old quilt. I’m trying to be compassionate, to remember her biological parents’ humanity, to remember that they did love her in their own way, and that they did make some wonderful memories with her. I never dreamed my family quilt would be a patchwork one. I envisioned something a bit more...perfect. Not so messy. I never dreamed the fabrics would come from so many different sources, and I never imagined that there would be tears in it, or that it would have so many different types of stitching. I never dreamed that some patches would be tacked on only for a moment before being torn off and returned to their old quilts, or that others would become a permanent part of us, slowly being embroidered into the tapestry of our lives. But no matter how it looks, our quilt still keeps us warm, and there's beauty in that. |
Old Stuff.
January 2023
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