This week has encouraged me to make a decision about Red and his future. I am going bring him into therapy work. Saturday I am taking him for a test and certificate with a non-profit therapy testing and training service in Vermont and I hope to do some hospice work with him, and also bring into nursing homes and some private homes where there are house-bound elderly people or some who are chronically ill.
My experience since I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease Monday and driven to bed for the better part of three days – I am close to breaking the fever – and watching his response to me, his focus and attentiveness and the comfort he brought me has convinced me that this is his true destiny, as is his wonderful work with sheep, which will continue. I feel it would be a crime to not permit this dog to fulfill his destiny and selfish to confine his gifts to me. Dogs ought to get the chance to live their lives, not just ours. I have been on the receiving end of his great affection and sensitivity all week and others deserve to feel it also.
Beyond that, I owe this to Karen Thompson as well, it was this quality in Red that made her think he ought to come to me, she hoped this was where he would lead me, and she was, as usual, correct. As many of you know, I did hospice volunteer work with my border collie Izzy almost up to the point where he died last year. I worked for the county hospice service which is being sold to a private company by the county government. Not the place for me any longer.
I want to undergo the training and certificate with a respected organization and go through it just like everyone else and they can help us find the appropriate outlets for his work in Vermont and in New York State, where I live. I know there are many therapy dogs, in some places there are more dogs than people who need them and nursing home managers tell me dogs are wonderful, but they wish they would see families more. I don’t need the vests and jackets or bumper stickers.
Still, I know from my experience with Izzy that the presence of a dog can light up a sick or lonely person’s face in a minute and I know watching Red with others as well as me that he has a powerful effect on people. So I want to move ahead with it. Working in hospice was wonderful, but at the end, we saw a lot of people die in a short time, and I burned out and so did Izzy. I will be careful with Red, and with me.
A half century ago, playwright Arthur Miller wrote that attention must be paid to a good man’s working life. He wrote those words in a time when people’s good work was valued and rewarded with security, consideration and appreciation. Proud men and women retired from years of meaningful work they were often rewarded with a pension and a watch or a party. My uncle wore his watch proudly until he died and would never buy a car from anyone else than his employer. There was a sense of gratitude, of a contract fulfilled. That seems like a long time ago. Work is different now, corporations have turned into something else, people work for health care, live in fear of being tossed into the street, and Tom Wolski is no Willy Loman. And he is very much ready to move on.
Today was his last day as a vet here, as our vet, and he retired this afternoon after 30 years of running a practice in which he earned the love and appreciation and devotion of a community of rural and small-town dog and animal lovers. And became my good and valued friend, someone I often talk to about animals and their training and care.
Tom wanted no party, no celebration, no recognition, he does not talk about himself, but I realized today was his last day and I grabbed my camera and ran over there. I had planned to take him to lunch tomorrow but had to cancel. For those of us who experience the special bond that exists with a good vet and a good human being and who value integrity and service and respect forr animals, it was an occasion to mark. I thought Tom would throw me out when I walked in, but I blurted out that I had Lyme Disease and to my surprise, he co-operated. He likes to call himself a curmudgeon, he is not.
I could not begin to recount the love and appreciation people in this part of the world have for him. To me, he is absolutely everything a good vet should be and decent and giving human being. When he graduated from Cornell he deliberately chose a small-town practice where he could be close to the people and their pets and avoid the high fees and sometimes unnecessary treatments vets in cities and suburbs are required to charge and propose. He knew most of the people here are poor and veterinary care was hard to manage and he was always conscious of cost. He is also an advocate for respecting the true nature of animals and not turning them into objects of human emotional need. He had a professional but direct style. I’d say blunt. He told the truth, a farmer told me. He never let me go astray, he said, when my dog had cancer Tom told me what it could cost to keep him alive for a few months and he saved me from debt and the dog from suffering.
One neighbor told me that he told Tom his out-of-control dog was probably abused. Not likely, Tom replied, he just has never been trained.
There are countless stories of Tom looking the other way when people couldn’t pay, coming out to farms and homes in the middle of the night to put dogs and cats down so they could die at home. He put one man’s dog down in the back seat of the car the dog loved to ride in. He would answer calls in the middle of the night, come into the practice Sunday to pull porcupine quills out of a foolish Lab. Tom resisted corporate intrusions into veterinary care, is uncomfortable with the epidemic medicating of dogs and the entry of big pharmaceutical corporations into veterinary medicine. He and I have the same values and notions about dog training, and about the need to listen to dogs and live their life. His staff loves and admires him, he is the kind of employer many people used to have.
Beyond his veterinary work, he is a remarkable human being, a kind and compassionate man, a creative one and one of those people whose word is solid gold. He loves the outdoors and is a first-rate nature photographer. He rarely shows his work.I don’t know a lot of people like that.
Aging is a bittersweet thing, it ends things and opens doors. Tom is not maudlin or regretful about moving on. He is not retiring, he is moving on to the next chapter, traveling, working with a local musical chorale, continuing his work on the local board of education. He is a ferociously competitive athlete who skis, rows, snowshoes. He has experienced deep personal tragedy and moved forward with even more empathy and grace.
I knew Tom would not pay attention to this day, and most people don’t know this is his last day. I felt honored that I could pay attention, nothing but a privilege. He and I will have lunch in a couple of weeks when he gets back from the first of many trips.
There is nothing quite like farm muck, it’s very pungent smell. Your boots get stuck in it, it hangs on and has to be scraped off inch by inch, it’s smell gets right into your skin and lingers. On a farm, muck and mud are a part of daily life, something one becomes more and more accustomed. Humans are not as adaptable as dogs, but our tolerance for certain things does grow. We take care about our shoes- never wear shoes you love into a pasture – we get used to smells that would have horrified us in another life – in most places – look the other way at things dogs tromp through and bring into the house. You just can’t be cleaning all the time. Once a week is important, but it is necessary. It is pouring again here today, flooding everywhere, including parts of our Pole Barn and pasture and we had to move the sheep in it. Red does not seem to notice rain, he shows no hesitation about doing out in it or working in.
Today he lay in the downpour for a half-an-hour, keeping the sheep in place and never blinking or moving an inch. I have always loved working dogs, and I am in awe of the breeding that went into his line. I always wince when people say it is wrong to ever buy a dog from a breeder, for dogs like Red would vanish from the earth.
I believe that love and connection are the two most powerful and animating forces for human beings. Sometimes, I don’t understand this drive it seems twisted to me – the “left” and the “right.” People are driven to label themselves to find their tribes, to connect to one another, yet our world makes it harder and harder to do, as the corporations that now control our country and government increasingly hide behind inhuman and unyielding software programs. Every time a human being makes a connection with another, or with an animal, the motivating instincts of humanity are affirmed. Here in the country, on our farm, I see this every day in the remarkable connection of my wife – to me, to the animals that she so loves and that so love her.
Her love of Rocky the blind pony – was a celebration of the best parts of us and of the loving side of the human spirit. And the most loving thing she ever did was letting him go.
There are often big lessons in small things. There are always opportunities to reaffirm our humanity and connection to one another.
I wrote earlier this week about an unpleasant experience at a hotel we were planning to go to on our anniversary. We usually go to a wonderful old inn in Vermont, a beautiful and gracious place where we spent our honeymoon. We thought it would be good to try something new so Maria called and made the reservation. I got sick two days before the visit and Maria called to say we wanted to move it to Monday. The desk clerk said the hotel policy was not to refund any portion of the payment unless the cancellation is made seven days before the stay, there were no exceptions.
Maria protested politely, she said it didn’t seem reasonable not to simply transfer the reservation, but the clerk said no. I was lying in bed next to her at the time in a feverish daze and the loss of more than $200 is a very big deal to her, she has never had extra money lying around in her life and so she decided to call back and the innkeeper answered and said the policy was fixed. What about sending a doctor’s note?, she suggested, to prove we were telling the truth. I heard Maria repeat this and heard the upset in her voice, it was shaking a bit. Confrontation does not come easily for her. Then, the innkeeper added, she was sure it was a 24 hour thing and we could come if we wished. Maria, a profoundly gentle soul, said we hadn’t been a doctor yet, and that I was quite sick. But the innkeeper stood firm.
Yesterday, I got steamed up at the way Maria had been treated. It didn’t seem appropriate to me. Maria can take care of herself, but I can take care of her too, sometimes, and I called the hotel and told the manager who answered that I did not believe in posting nasty messages on online travel sites, I preferred to talk directly to the people involved. I told him I didn’t think it was appropriate to make us feel like liars because we were sick. A few minutes later Maria came into my office smiling. “What have you done?,” she asked. The innkeeper had called her and apologized. She had Googled us online (I never mention that I am a writer or say anything about who I am) and she said she loved Maria’s blog and mine and said she felt badly, that we should come, and she was so sorry and if we weren’t happy we didn’t have to pay at all.
It turned into an interesting question for Maria and I, several things sprang from it. Maria wanted to try something new. I was kind of irked at the place. I had just called the familiar inn – we spent our honeymoon there – and they said they were so happy we were coming and if I was still sick just call them at any time and there would be no charge at all. It made me want to go back there, I so associate it with our marriage. We did not argue, we rarely do, we just talked it through, slipping unconsciously into Quaker process, into patiently waiting to be clear. And we began to get clear. I’ve belonged to two Quaker Meetings in my life and one of the many good things I took from both was the idea of seeking a consensus, a common sense of things.
First, we accepted the apology of the innkeeper, took it to be sincere. We wanted to cause her and the hotel no harm – I have deliberately not mentioned it and won’t – people make mistakes all of the time, I sure do. I don’t want to act out of anger and it seems like a nice place to go. And while I use the Internet quite a bit, I don’t want it to replace human communications for me, the only way, I think, to resolve differences in a healthy and authentic way. I didn’t want to stew about it, or make it a bigger thing than it was. Our world seems so full of anger, complaint and disconnection, I don’t want to add any more. And I didn’t want the anger bubbling around in me either. The innkeeper and I are both humans beings doing our best.
Still, the experience tainted it a bit for me as a place to go for an anniversary celebration. Maria had already let it go, but I love the old inn and our connection to it. So we talked it through a few times – we had plenty of time and I was in bed and she was taking care of me – and so we decided this:
We are going to go to our usual inn next Monday to celebrate our anniversary, assuming I am not drooling or staggering around, and then this summer, we’ll go try the new place, we will hopefully meet the innkeeper.
It worked out well, I think, I was happy to drop my anger and move ahead. I am glad I didn’t storm away from it or just post something nasty online. I’ve never done that, although I know it can be helpful and useful sometimes. But you never really know what has happened, and you rarely get the chance to hear the other side. There is always another side. People have the right to explain and defend themselves.
For every connection the Internet makes, it can also push us apart from each other. The innkeeper did not, I think, mean any harm. And who knows, she may have had a problem with people who don’t show up. I confess to being small, to getting a chuckle at the though of her coming across our blogs. She did not know that I would never use the blog in that way or write about her by name or location, and I suspect she will treat the next illness cancellation differently. It came out well, I think.
This morning, Maria called her to make a reservation in July and she is giving us a suite for $200. She and Maria are friends already and I suspect we will be going there more than once. This is a point of light in a world that sometimes seems dark. I am going to give the innkeeper a book and Maria wants to make her a potholder. I bet we end up liking her and one of the lessons from small things I am reminded of is that a personal connection is always better than a nasty review.
