Triple the Joy!

(Left: Juliette and Mom at Houston performance of Wicked, July 2010)

I burst into the laundry room, searching for her. I could swear I saw her run in there, but no such luck. "I'm up here, Mom," whispered the young teen's voice from above. I lifted my eyes and indeed there she was, smiling big and wide, metal braces catching light from the family room lamp. Like a monkey, she had climbed to the top of the refrigerator for sanctuary from her sister, Mackenzie. The simple act of Juliette gathering her hair into a pony tail sent Mackenzie, our autistic daughter, into a temporarily aggressive tailspin, but that's another Muddy story for another Muddy day.

Up until that moment I was anxious, checking each room in the house. Where did she go? Is she safe? I momentarily experienced--yet again--the array of emotions associated with special needs parenting, much like a Peacock expands its huge array of feathers: One for love, one for anger, one for fear, one for confusion, one for joy, one for anxiety, one for sympathy, one for overwhelming gratitude and another for if I catch her I'm gonna kick her ass. Yes, I do have those moments, and if other special needs parents don't ever think that way, well, they're better people than me.

So there she was--my poor girl!--hunched next to the two liter jugs of Diet Coke and boxes of margarita mix, legs and arms wrapped up like a pretzel.

It brought me back to about 14 years and six months ago, when I sat next to my husband in a geneticist's office, weeping and blowing my nose into a tissue. "My poor girl! How can this be possible?"

"Well, the amnio shows an additional chromosome," said the geneticist. "Sometimes these things happen."

But could it happen twice? To us? Having one child with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) put the fear of God in me regarding having more children. Not so for my husband, whose easygoing and optimistic nature allowed him to easily accept every word of literature and counsel that suggested our chances of having another TSC child were only 1% out of 100.

Me, on the other hand? Not so much. We both wanted more children, which is unusual with TSC families, but I've established in previous posts that us Mudds are anything but usual. We underwent MRIs and were relieved to learn we didn't have the tell-tale tumors, or "tubers," associated with TSC. This put us in the two-thirds "spontaneous mutation" category regarding Mackenzie--wish they could call it something else, like "spontaneous surprise"--clearing us for more children. Not so fast, I said, noting the lack of a DNA test to be extra-doubly-absolutely sure.

SOOOOO I dragged Chris to adoption agencies. First, an agency for domestic babies, the waiting list for which was long and the process longer. Next, an agency for international babies, including little Chinese girls, but at the time, they were not adopting babies out to families who already had children. Finally, I checked into local Foster Care babies, until Mackenzie's neurologist pointed out the obvious: "You know, Mrs. Mudd, you want the guarantee of a healthy baby. There is no such guarantee." Chris glanced at him in a knowing manner, which came as no surprise. It seemed he had been humoring me with these visits, tests, and counseling sessions until I finally came to the conclusion he had all along: "Let's have our own child."

One month later I was pregnant. Three months later, the amnio results came back, and the voice of an unnamed nurse stated "Triple X" over the phone. I immediately lost my mind, assuming the worst of the worst. I looked it up:

Triple X: About 1 in 1,000 females has an extra X chromosome (4). They usually have no physical birth defects, experience normal puberty and are fertile. Affected girls usually have normal intelligence, though many have learning problems. Because these girls are healthy and have a normal appearance, their parents often don’t know they have a chromosomal abnormality.

Learning problems. Retardation? Mental retardation--again? NO! Fast forward to the nose-blowing session at the geneticists' office.

"The cells might have multiplied by mistake, and she's fine..." she said. "...or maybe not. We could do another amnio, but the cells may multiply in the same way." I managed a slight smile, all the while thinking "What kind of a stupid idea is that?! Do another test to get the same results? "Or," she whispered, "we can take fluid from the umbilical cord, which can cause a miscarriage, but we'd know for sure then." I blinked. Miscarry and then find out she was fine all along? Just lovely. "How bad are the learning difficulties?"I asked. She answered, "Possibly some tutoring in math, maybe reading."

"This isn't TSC," I clarified. "No, it's not," she confirmed. Chris and I looked at each other. He squeezed my hand." We're talking math tutoring?" She nodded. I sat back and considered the ridiculous nature of this entire discussion. We had tuberous sclerosis hanging out there like a 200 pound gorilla, and here we were sitting in a fluorescent-lit conference room making a big whoop over math tutoring. I considered for a moment that I probably have Triple X myself, given my lifelong prickly relationship with math.

Then I asked, somewhat incredulously, "Does anyone ever terminate a pregnancy due to Triple X? I mean really--math tutoring?" She winced..."A doctor and his wife recently did. They wanted a guaranteed healthy baby." Ahhh, little grasshopper doctor and wife, I thought: There are no guarantees.

"We're keeping the baby and we won't have further testing," we said. The geneticist smiled. When our girl came into the world on December 4, 1996, the doctors wanted to take blood from her umbilical cord just to be sure there was no Triple X. Chris was against it; he didn't want her to come into the world with a label. I agreed.

Of course, I watched her like a hawk over her early months and years, waiting for Triple X to rear its head, or far worse, for TSC to come and stay. What would the signs be? Before long, I counted them:

• Immense beauty
• Walked on time
• Talked on time--uh, a bit too much
• Showed an affinity for math
• Devoured books
• Extremely social
• "Labeled" as gifted and talented
• Ambidextrous; helps when hiding on top of a refrigerator
• Easygoing (father's genes)

Houston, we have a healthy child! What came with the relief was a new road, a new path...one where life wasn't only about the honor of loving and caring for a child in special ed classes and hospitals, but regular classrooms and parties as well. While one experience has changed me forever, so has the other. Like a Peacock with all those feathers, the array of emotions is colorful, riveting and sometimes overwhelming...but in the end, so beautiful. Of course, Juliette does have her handicaps. These are the signs:

• Total slob; can't see bedroom floor
• Borrows my things without asking
• Sucks the disposable income out our ears
• Thinks she's smarter than me
• Scatter-brained (father's genes)

I think I can live with this, though.

While some may think this post has an anti-abortion sentiment, that is not my message. It's simply about surprises in life--both good and bad--intertwining to create a journey that is richer than anything I could ever have imagined.

As I looked up to the top of the refrigerator that day, I laughed along with my daughter. Not only is she a healthy kid, she is compassionate toward her older sister, realizing that a positive attitude is everything, even if you have to occasionally run for your life.

So to Juliette, I offer this belated birthday post: Thank you for entering my world, sweet child, and changing it forever.

Next time you're on top of the fridge, though, please give it a dusting.

The Painted Mirror

BFFs and then some: A trip to Boston to see my lifelong friend, Susie, brought me back to the hallowed halls of St. Bridget's Elementary School and the nuns who shaped my youth.

I shifted from left to right, the tight Buster Browns making my feet hurt worse. Good grief, when would this be over? I tried to wiggle my big toe, then my baby toe, and repeated the exercise on both feet as a sort of self-afflicted hypnosis to lessen the degree of my humiliation. Then I heard it:

"Miss Natale!" I WILL ASK YOU ONE MORE TIME! Nine times eight equals WHAT? " Seventy two. I knew it was 72. Why wouldn't I say just say it? "If you do not tell me the answer you will write it on the board 72 times!" I stood there as my classmates giggled. Others shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Such was the intensity of the moment that one such classmate recalled this exchange over 40 years later, when we met up on a business trip: "Why didn't you just tell Sister Irmita it was 72?"

She was scary as hell and I was frozen in my tracks, that's why. All of us third graders at Framingham, Massachusetts' St. Bridget's Elementary School lived in fear of the old nun. On that particular fall day in 1968, I had time to ponder Sister Irmita's nasty ways as I scrawled "9 x 8 = 72"on the chalkboard, 72 times. She's a big crabapple, I lamented. Old, crotchety, with milky gray skin and wrinkled jowls similar to Winston Churchill's Bull Dog, she was an unpleasant site indeed. I regularly whiled my days away in her humid classroom, my eyes following one jowl to the next as they embraced the thinly-drawn lips that rambled on about arithmetic, perfect penmanship and Jesus, Mary and Joseph. And when she locked her piercing blue eyes on you from behind those horn-rimmed glasses? Your knees went weak and you had to go to the bathroom.

Sister Irmita's vitriol was matched only by a rare brand of fury bestowed upon us by Sister Mary Joseph, the bombastic, senile nun who had it out for me from the day she saw me passing a note to Patty Morris. It was all personal hellfire and brimstone from there, growing worse in intensity after my mother spoke with the principal about how I was being treated. Sisters Irmita and Mary Joseph were joined by a host of other women, the names of whom I can no longer recall but whose long black habits brushing the floor, rosary beads dangling loosely over large white collars, and tight, stiff headpieces attached to flowing black veils are forever etched in my mind.

These were the nuns of St. Bridget's Parish. Women of God. Married to Christ. Good with a ruler, especially on your knuckles. Stern. Strict. Mysterious.

I'm not sure if it was this mystery or the memories that beckoned me, but I felt compelled to see the school during a trip to Boston this past summer while visiting my lifelong friend and former classmate, Susie. As we drove up that familiar hill and I caught my first glance of the stoic brick structure, it hit me: Forty-four springs, summers, winters and falls had passed and thousands of children had graduated from this institution, but it was unchanged. I stepped out of the car and looked up--even the signage, even the gray-taupe brick--it could be 1968 and I could be eight years old again. The building seemed to glare back at me, as if to ask where I had been all this time.

As luck would have it, the school's facilities manager, Henry, was there, all too pleased to let us in once he realized that the two 50-year-old women peering through the windows meant no harm. As we stepped inside and saw particles of dust swirling in the afternoon sunlight, I heard the whispered secrets of my friends and imagined countless giggling school children jumping down the stairs two at a time toward the basement as the sisters gripped their skirts and yelled at us to take off our snow boots. I touched the cool, metal railing and let my eyes drop to the multi-colored tiles...the same ones upon which I walked, always in single file, from class to class so many years ago.

"Oh my God," said Susie. "Here's Sister Irmita's classroom. Remember nine times eight equals 72? Hah!" I walked inside and took it in. Other than new desks and whiteboards replacing the chalkboards of old, it was the same. I sat at one of the desks and envisioned the old sister pacing in front, addressing her young charges in a clipped tone that meant business.

Henry was a delightful tour guide, pointing to mid-60s photographs on the walls and pulling out a dusty photo album featuring our very own third grade class. There I was in the second row, with my popular "pixie" haircut of the day, and Susie, cute as a button, a few rows over.

"Do you want to go upstairs?" said Henry.

"That's where the fifth graders were," Susie reminded me.

Our family's move to Michigan precluded my fifth grade year, so I never made it to the second floor. Still, we went up there and wandered the halls.

Beckoning us to follow, Henry said "Here's something you need to see before it's torn down." Although the school remained nearly untouched, the left wing of the second floor was about to be renovated.

"This is where they lived," he explained. Where they lived? Who's they, I wondered? We followed Henry further, and stood in stupefied amazement as Henry showed us the nuns' living quarters. "We don't have nuns at the school anymore. It's all lay teachers now, but the nuns in the 60s and early 70s lived right here, in tiny cells along this hallway."

"You mean they lived right upstairs from our classrooms?" I couldn't believe it. This was a small school, known for cold, drafty afternoons in the winter and non air-conditioned, over-heated rooms in the spring and summer. I fainted once while reciting the alphabet, sweat dampening my chest and back. Who knows if it was really the heat or just another episode with Sister Irmita.

So the women who taught us woke up every day in this less than accommodating building, donned their heavy black habits, walked down one flight of stairs to guide us in our academics, and then proceeded to go back up to their quarters--again and again. Their meals were served in the nearby rectory, Henry explained, but they didn't have cars or a means to transport themselves anywhere else. This was it. We were their lives.

Then Henry brought us into one of the cells, nothing more than a closet with a sink. That's when I saw it: the mirror. "Of course it's painted over, since the nuns weren't allowed to look at themselves. They took a vow to avoid vanity." I approached the sink, the mirror. I ran my fingers over the paint, so old that it chipped beneath my touch. Amazing, I thought. I had no idea.

I videotaped Henry giving us a tour of the tiny cell, the result of which is below. When it was over, we thanked him profusely, took one last look inside, and then walked back into the schoolyard. Susi and I then stepped around the side of the school where we spotted the same horizontal, metal pole I used to do backflips on. She took a picture of me trying to do a flip, an act from which my 50-year-old body recoiled, and then we strolled to the neighbor's garage where we once played hide and seek before the sisters yanked us out and gave us a scolding.

The sisters. I wondered then: What kind of person vows to live in such isolation, with no outlet whatsoever? To do the same thing over and over and over so that days blend into months and months into years--in which you rarely, if ever, consider your own needs? And who other other than a prison inmate could sleep in a closet? Prisoners had no choice, but the nuns did, and most of them chose this life. They chose us.

It's then that other, more distant, memories came to me. I glanced back at the schoolyard and saw four sisters on dusty, make-shift softball bases, adorned in their heavy habits with sweat trickling down the sides of their foreheads as they waited in anticipation, catchers mitts in hand. Sister Irmita presided over the spectacle with a sly smile, exclaiming "Miss Natale, throw that ball the right way!" Glancing back at the school door, I remembered a young nun washing a cut and placing a bandaid on my knee, looking up with warm, brown eyes while chiding me for playing tag in the rain. I could see the sisters stomping through the snow, bundled in coats while pulling up at their skirts so they wouldn't get too wet and cold, leading us through the flurries to the school's church. I looked at the playground, recalling two nuns holding and swinging two ropes at a time as I attempted Double Dutch, going faster and faster until I tripped, laughing and asking to do it again. I remember their hands, rough from hard work and utterly unadorned except for the gold wedding bands representing their marriages to God.

Again I thought: What kind of person could live as they did, singularly focused on teaching, disciplining, and in some ways, raising us? Dare I also say, loving us? This thought led to further consideration regarding all the painted mirrors in my life. When have I chosen to see only one side of an individual, making assumptions without looking beyond the exterior?

As Susie and I got back into the car, I took one, last, long look at my school. The sisters who taught us there are long gone now, and although I use my 9 x 8 = 72 and Sister Mary Joseph stories at cocktail parties for a laugh or two, I view them now in a different light.

When the contractors come later this year and demolish the tiny living quarters and painted mirrors of St. Bridget's Elementary School, a piece of history will surely be lost. Yet, as the nuns of my youth knew a long time ago, material things are just material things. It's what's in your heart that counts, and they have forever left an indelible print on mine.

Henry showing us how the nuns lived.

Name that 1968 Third Grader!

So much for back flips...

Twoo Wuv...

You'd have to have seen "Princess and The Bride" to get the Twoo Wuv reference, but it's just one of many things my own true love and I have in common. This blog post is surely puke-worthy for anyone who doesn't want to know how Chris and I measure L-O-V-E, and TMI-gag-me-worthy for anyone who'd rather, well, gag than click on our vow renewal video. I'm posting this primarily for our children who, some day, will be making their own decisions regarding a lifetime mate. May they be as fortunate as us. It's also for our dear friends who know us well and have been a part of our 20 year journey. Wishing you all some twoo wuv today!

TWENTY THINGS WE LOVE:

On our 20th Anniversary this past September 22, Chris and I went to a charming little restaurant in downtown Houston and listed 20 things we love about each other--10 topics each. It didn't matter if there were overlaps and the lists are not in order of preference; we simply wrote what came to mind:

Chris said about MJ:

1. Spunky
2. Laughs out loud
3. A complete person
4. Thoughtful & caring mom
5. Takes care of herself
6. Christian
7. Best friend
8. Worldly
9. Compassionate and selfless
10. Smart

MJ said about Chris:

1. Patient
2. Fun-loving
3. Optimistic
4. Smart and successful
5. Responsible and reliable
6. Loving, committed father
7. Christian
8. Takes care of himself
9. Thinks I'm hot
10. Faithful

Below: Renewing our vows at Mo Ranch in Hunt, Texas, with the Rev. Harry Slyve officiating. More special than our actual wedding day, since this time around we had mutual history to draw us close, and no one fell over from a heart attack (another story for another day!).

A Silent Love

She tore off a slice of pizza and nudged it onto my plate. Had I not turned around before rolling my bowling ball down the lane, I wouldn't have known. I'd never have seen the small gesture, the slight, beckoning glance that conveyed "This is for you." I'd have missed it, which is pretty much par for the course with Mackenzie. Blink your eyes and an ocean of discussion can be lost.

Ever since I was old enough to learn that there were people in the world other than myself, I've been a communicator. Fuzzy 8mm movies show me on my first birthday, party hat dangling from my ear and diapers swishing against chubby thighs, jabbering to anyone who would listen. Italian and extroverted, the give and take of verbal discourse for me is like air. The movie Castaway is on my all time list of "movies I hate," due to the sheer loneliness of it. Give me a week or two with Wilson the soccer ball as my only friend, and I'd be looking for the closest cliff from which to hurl myself.

So, on Mackenzie's 18th birthday, as the bowling ball rolled down the lane and plopped into the gutter with a thud, I jumped and laughed, asking her what she thought of Mommy's lousy bowling. There was a semi-smile, but nothing else. Silence.

Diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis complex on her first birthday, Mackenzie is moderately mentally impaired, epileptic, and exhibits autistic behaviors. She can articulate in fragments but she's not much for conversation. Don't get me wrong--she's not a quiet kid. In fact, she'll laugh at her favorite shows on Nick, tell us to move when we dare to sit in her favorite chair, or exclaim "I did it!" when she mixes pancake batter or helps us walk the dogs. To determine if she's had a good time at camp, school, a party or just about anywhere, though, we need to call people who were there. Otherwise, it may go like this:

What did you do today, sweetheart?

[Nothing.]

What was your favorite thing about today, Mackenzie?

"I'm fine."

That's nice, but what did you do today? Did you see Aaron?

"I like Sponge Bob!"

Did you make food today?

"No."

Did you do any crafts?

"Yes."

What were they?

[Silence]

Come on, sweetie. Tell me what you did.

"BOSKEEEEEEE!" (Bosco is the name of one of our dogs...somehow his name has turned into a happy Mackenzie chant, to be repeated multiple times for reasons unknown to us.)

In stressful or unusual situations, she surprises us by belting it out like a talk show host. On one particularly memorable Halloween evening, she insisted on leaving a party due to the host's frightening decorations. She stationed herself next to our car and exclaimed, "I want to go home right now. Do you hear me? Right now! It's scaring me and I SAID I am going home! Right now!" I asked myself, where the heck did that come from?

Such occasions remind me that there is much more in Mackenzie's mind than any of us can understand or comprehend. I'm reminded that my daughter is a mystery...in many ways a gift to be opened, like those Russian nesting dolls, one by one. But slowly, excruciatingly slowly, over the months and years.

So on her August 16 birthday, we did the mother/daughter thing: First, the bowling, followed by lunch, then a mani-pedi, a shopping trip to Target and finally, a visit to Chilli's for a big hot fudge sundae. Perhaps ten sentences were exchanged the whole day. I found myself reaching for my iPhone--a communication fix of any kind, be it e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, anything--but I resisted. Despite her lack of verbal discourse, she is very aware of her surroundings. She deserves the respect of an attentive mother.

It was at Target, observing a number of other moms with their college-bound 18 year olds, that I succumbed to a moment of melancholy. They were stocking up on bedding and toiletries, disagreeing on purchases, laughing over comments too soft for me to overhear, calling out to each other and comparing pants, pajamas, and sweaters. The words blurred together and became a hum of sorts; the buzz of communication.

It's then that I allowed myself a little daydream--one I've had before--of Mackenzie and me in Heaven. You see, it's my hope that some day we'll get to catch up on everything we wanted to say on Earth. Since people with tuberous sclerosis complex don't always live full lives, in my daydream she is at the foot of my bed, as an angel, while I am dying. (For some reason I think I'm going to die in a bed, but that's besides the point.) As I pass over into my new life, she is bubbling over with excitement with all the things she can't wait to tell me. We hug and laugh, and she's healthy as a horse. It's then that she spills forth about what she loved during her life on Earth, what she hated, what she thought when we did this, that or the other. I ask her if I was a good mom or did I lose my patience too often, why did God allow her to suffer so, and she holds me and tells me to forget about all that, because we are going to have a wonderful time throughout eternity. There's a lot of joy in this daydream. Bright light, too.

"Can I have it?"

Holding a computer game and a package of Play Dough, she smiled. I'm back at Target, very much alive, and very much in the here and now.

"Of course you can have it," I replied. "It's your birthday, sweetheart."

"Am I silly, Mommy?"

"You're a sweetheart, Mackenzie."

We drove home, where I told my husband all about our mother/daughter day of fun while Mackenzie opened the Play Dough. I hugged our younger girls and learned all about their days, which they more than wanted to discuss.

It was the following evening, as I was opening the refrigerator door to pull out the milk, when I heard it. "Thank you, Mom." I turned around to see Mackenzie smiling at me. "For what?" "For yesterday." "Yesterday?" "Bowling. Pizza. Nails. Thank you." I stood there holding the milk, speechless. Yes, speechless. As if to punctuate the moment to ensure I understood her, she said "I had fun."

And so did I. My daughter has taught me more in 18 years than I could ever fit into a blog post, but one thing I never anticipated, one thing I didn't consider, is the value of a relationship where few words are spoken.

The gift of a silent love.

Happy birthday to me! Holding a present at Target.

Time Flies When You're Living It

I recently wrote a post for "Rocket Thoughts," my marketing blog, on all the excuses us bloggers make for, well, not blogging. Check it out if you care to do so.

Something I didn't write about, though, is the sheer joy of living life so full and so fast that you don't make time to write about it. As John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." Had he lived during the digital marketing age, he'd probably have said "Life is what happens when you're staring into your iPad, iPhone and laptop."

Even then, it's time to catch up on My Muddy Life over the past few months:

SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

MACKENZIE'S PROM: When they told us she had tuberous sclerosis at age one, I never in a million years thought I'd see our daughter go to the prom. The photo below shows not only a giggling teen with her handsome date, it represents one of the happiest days of my life.

Aaron & Mackenzie

INTERFAITH MINISTRIES: I was overwhelmed with a busy calendar and grumbled about a public speaking workshop I had to do for a group of kids, since they weren't my "target audience" for Full Tilt Communications. Surprise! I had the time of my life, learned more from than they did from me, and was humbly reminded that life is more about giving, than getting.

MJ and cool kids

GIRL SCOUTS: Took Troops 20080 (Karenna's troop) and 12025 (Juliette's) camping in the Spring, along with my BFFs Brenda Moore and Sheryl Reynaud. This is the one shot where Juliette and Karenna weren't fighting.

Juliette, Mom and Karenna

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!

Troop 20080 and GS Leader MJ celebrate at "End of School Year" party. I love these kids, but geeze, I needed a break.

Craziness runs in the family. Juliette and Karenna at Vacation Bible School.

The start of my one-month 50th Birthday Bash!

1) Girls' Weekend: Betsy, Debbie, Jackie and me at the San Luis in Galveston.

2) Second bash: No photos! June 17 Baubles, Broads & Business Banter. Lots of fun biz friends came by for a splash of margaritas and a look at my friend Nesh's "Stella & Dot" Jewelry.

Then....the mother of all surprises: Chris threw me a major soiree at the Cadillac Bar. Friends from far and wide showered me with birthday love. Weeeeeee!

I'm pooped. More summer to go, in Part II.

Cheers!

Rocky's Crepe

Juliette and puppy Rocky, December 1998

I'll come out and say it. I don't quite trust people who don't like dogs. This is an ugly truth I've hidden for years; me, of all people, who doesn't know a stranger. Of course, it isn't that I don't like people who don't like dogs...it's just that non-dog people and I will almost always do fine on the surface but not on a deeper level that requires a bit more of something. Emotion? Compassion? I'm not sure but whatever it is, dog appreciation is a relationship indicator for me, much like a barometer is an indicator of the weather.

This is one of the many things I learned from one Rocky Balboa Mudd, the furry guy who padded into our lives, all spittle and fur and licks, in October of 1998, and died peacefully in my arms last month, as I choked back the tears.

There's no point in writing a doggy obituary here, although I've tried to do it countless times. Better writers like Anna Quindlen penned one of my favorite dog essays of all time, called "Good Dog, Beau. Stay," and there's "Marley and Me," which had me sobbing so loudly on the beach last year that my kids walked away in embarrassment. (Unsolicited advice: Skip the movie and read the book...but perhaps not in a public place, like the beach.) Yes, anything I could say has been said before, including "What I Learned From My Dog," variations of which have been shared all over the world.

At this point, those of you who don't care for dogs won't be able to close this post fast enough. I understand. Us dog people can be pretty odd. We exchange fur balls, chewed furniture, backyard poop and overturned trash cans for slobbery, tail-wagging, face-licking love. Many people call it loyalty, but I think that loyalty is the result of love--sheer, happy, unadulterated, running from one side of the kitchen to the other and jumping up and down love. Like a nectar of the Gods, this love, once experienced, is hard to give up. Even I have occasionally scratched my head when friends have paid thousands in canine chemotherapy or purchased those strange wheel devices for an elderly furry companion who can no longer use his legs. But I've never asked why, because I know why. Us dog people, we all know why.

There comes a point, though, where the compassion required for owning and loving a dog is the same compassion from which we must draw to make a final, humane decision. In his book "Me Talk Pretty One Day," humorist David Sedaris observed upon the death of his cat: ..."with the death of a pet, there's always an urge to string black crepe over an entire ten or twenty-year period. The end of my safe college life, the end of my 30-inch waist, my faltering relationship with my first real boyfriend: I cried for it all and wondered why there were so few songs written about cats."

Indeed, Rocky came into our lives when Juliette was a toddler and Karenna was merely an idea on the horizon. He stood watch, head titled and eyes alert, during countless Halloween parties, poolside luaus and family suppers. He presided over the decorating and tear-down of 12 Christmas trees and managed to get himself on the front page of the Chronicle, held tight under the jacket of our then 12 year old son, Jeff, who is now a 24 year old young man. He chewed up grade school science experiments, ate socks by the bagful, slid across the kitchen table when our backs were turned and flew like the wind down the street whenever the door was left ajar. He was there when I came back, exhausted, from my father's funeral in Florida, and sat by my side. No words, no requests, just a nuzzle and a lick, which was enough.

If I close my eyes, I can see our girls running after him over the years, evolving from sticky-fingered tots to knee scraped elementary school children to, now, young ladies...all legs, laughter, and hair flying in the wind. Rocky's crepe, it seems, wraps itself tightly around the most significant memories of our lives. Or, as I'd like to think, Rocky's very existence made our memories more significant...including the most difficult one, in which each of our children went up to him one last time, patted his back and kissed his forehead, before that final trip to the vet.

Which brings me back to that trust thing. People who don't quite get a dog's love are just fine, I'm sure, but we're cut from different cloths and we always will be. I doubt they'd consider the old saying "Lord, make me be the person my dog thinks I am," as something of value. But I do.

Rocky, old boy, I hope I am the person you thought I was, and may I always strive to be that person in the future. Thanks for teaching me what a joy it is to be a dog person. Odd or not, this is a club I'll belong to for the rest of my life.

Juliette and our boy, March 2010.

Making Lemonade...

It hurts a mom's heart to start the legal guardianship process on behalf of her special needs child. Mackenzie, age 17, will never be able to make her own medical decisions or attain adult independance, compliments of tuberous sclerosis complex. On the upside, there are angels who have paved our path for the past 17 years, making the special needs journey one of compassion, joy, and even a laugh or two. Case in point: Michele K. Goldberg--a lady who truly has our backs. Or more specifically, Mackenzie's back. Lemonade, anyone?

Above: Michele Goldberg and
Mackenzie holding the Scales of Justice.