Christmas Story #3: Redrum

Not being clairvoyant, I don’t really know if other people go around with the same phrase drumming through their heads all day long.  This isn’t every day.  It’s just some days.  Some particularly bad days.

Christmastime brings back memories of one of the more persistent brain boogies —I am blind and my dog is dead.

Many years ago, Bradley Center, Wisconsin Badger Hockey Classic, free tickets given to my husband along with a red long-sleeve Badger Hockey shirt (which he still has, of course) – it’s two days after a sad, rainy Christmas, a month after we had put one of our kids in residential treatment, one day after sending two other kids to dreaded Winter Camp, and hours after we had taken our dog, Davey, for her last walk around the neighborhood, loaded her into the car, took her to the vet and sat stroking her head while the vet gave her the shot that would end her 17-year stay on this earth and in our lives.

There was so much wrong.

Every slam of a hockey player into the wall, every clicking stick, each whistle.  I am blind and my dog is dead. The people behind us talking, the woman in the next stall in the bathroom, the guy in the paper hat pouring the beer.  I am blind and my dog is dead.

So much wrong. So much failure. So much grief. I am blind and my dog is dead.

I couldn’t make it snow on Christmas.  I couldn’t make my kids like Winter Camp.  I had to give my child to other people to fix.  I couldn’t make our beloved dog live forever.

I am blind and my dog is dead.

I’m not into meditation.  In fact, I’m not deep in the least.  But I think the thing about a mantra is that it’s sort of like using a magic marker to write the same phrase over and over again until the marker runs dry.  And you either have to go find another marker or just give it up.

And because there’s never a decent marker when you need one, I gave it up.

It’s Christmas many years later.  Everyone’s doing ok.  No one’s dead or in jail.  We had a nice day.  But some little fleck of the day made me remember that night at the Bradley Center and be glad I wasn’t there anymore.

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I am Blind and My Dog is Dead is a book of cartoons by Sam Gross.  See www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Gross