Many of our friends find themselves in the "Middle Age," as the self-help books label it, caught in the middle between high-demand teenage kids and high-maintenance aging parents. While we have the high-demand teenage kids, Keith and I are lucky: our dads died when we were young.
Wait. That didn't come out right.
Umm, I just mean, we don't have aging dads. And our moms. Gosh, our moms. Incredible women, they live active, productive, energetic lives. My mom roller skates. Keith's mom smokes meat and cans veggies that she grows in a garden the size of New Hampshire. The moms are fine.
But we haven't quite escaped the squeeze between demanding kids and aging loved ones. It's just that our aging loved one is a dog. Rowan is aging--and not at all gracefully. He's a dog. A big furry lumbering slobbering dog. He doesn't do graceful. But he does do age. Every night. In our bedroom. Where he sleeps. Loudly. He snorts. He snores. He coughs. He sighs. He mutters. And then he wakes up and wanders. We have wood floors. Bracken has nails. He goes clickclickclickclick back and forth back and forth back and forth. It's like having the River Dance troupe in your bedroom in the middle of the night. And then all those clicking dancers suddenly throw themselves on the floor with a loud THUMP and begin to lick their genitals with great slurpy gusto.
I keep fantasizing about a pair of youthful West Highland terriers. I will call them Campion and Comfrey. They will not sleep in our bedroom. They will wear little terrier mittens so they will not click. And they will be de-tongued. . . or de-genitalled. . . anyway, they will not slurp.
Clearly I am not a Good Person. A Good Person does not fantasize about replacing her loyal and affectionate dog with a younger model. I wonder if this means that when we come to the point where we are caring for our aged, ailing moms, I'll daydream about substitutes,you know, like perhaps one of those wealthy old moms with a great summer house by the beach and a small collection of paintings by early Abstract Expressionists and a voracious appetite for world affairs.
Oh dear.
Fourth attempt to comment, here goes nothing:
ReplyDeleteThis post is sad and hilarious. We had to put down our beautiful Golden last spring and we still miss him dreadfully. He was a noisy night-chewer too and was generally banished to the boys room unless it was raining and he needed to be with his mommy.:)
So glad to hear your mom is as awesome as ever!
Guess I'll add Owen Meaney to my reading list!
BTW, this is Kathy Atwood. :)