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Posts Tagged ‘Stephen King’

It

Posted in Chart Topper?, Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on September 8, 2017| Leave a Comment »

opens today. I do hope to see It in the theater. It should be exciting, although I am a die-hard Tim Curry/Pennywise devotee. Still, with the release of the new It, I have been thinking about the long dance I have had with this book. 

I think of my childhood, the good and bad parts. I’m seeing it through new eyes as I’ve been discovering truths and alternate versions of history. It’s been changing so much for me. I don’t like it, truthfully, but it is also refreshing. I should embrace the lightness it can offer me.

1986 was a difficult year for me, an awkward teenager. I didn’t feel comfortable at my high school, didn’t feel that I fit in or was liked that much. Reading It when it came out in the fall of that year helped me understand that so many people feel that way. And when like finds like, you form a group of friends, even the Losers.

And the adults, in the book and in my life at that point, couldn’t see what was happening. They couldn’t see my pain, my sadness, my illness. As I’ve been thinking on that concept, I’ve started to ask myself what do I not see in my sons’ worlds? What am I turning a blind eye to? I’m attempting to open my eyes to their perspectives, the very real struggles and challenges and rewards and fun of being a teenager.

I’ve thought a lot about Stan and what happens to him. How childhood events haunted him so much even in adulthood that he just couldn’t bear it.

I think of the power of a promise when you are younger. 

I think of balloons, floating, and how I still think that’s a waste of a noble gas. My sons’ quote Pennywise all the time, about floating, yet they’re not allowed to have helium balloons. Now there’s a mean childhood memory they’ll have to deal with.

I think of simplicity, brothers, birds, spiders, and lost innocence. I think of lost opportunities. I work through regrets of my childhood. 

Some books stay with you for a lifetime. You dance with them, you create a new poem together each time you revisit each other. I haven’t read It for over a decade. I couldn’t, not once I was the mother of two sons. But they’re teenagers now. I think it’s time I revisit It. And let It see where I am today.

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01/05/14

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on January 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

This is the day I finally finished reading 11/22/63 by Uncle Stevie.  As the very dedicated Gentle Readers will recall, I became too scared to continue reading this book when I first began reading it in the fall of 2012.  Yes, 11/22/63 sat on the floor with the pile of “in progress” books untouched for well over a year.  Uncle Stevie wove into this story tiny bits of It and this scared the crap out of me.  Also, Hubby’s family name was used on the back cover which I didn’t notice until after reading about Bev and Rich near the Barrens.  But as of today, I finished reading the remaining 700 or so pages in about 12 over hours over the span of the past three days.  As I continued reading, the red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury kept showing up and I really wanted to smack Uncle Stevie across the face.  There was also a line about a Saint Bernard being a nice dog but still shooting it if it had rabies.  I grant you that I may read far too much into these books, but I know Uncle Stevie likes to throw this things in just to make sure you’re paying attention.

The saddest part of all is that the book is over.  I’ve read it.  I wish it hadn’t ended.  Granted, I just got Doctor Sleep and will begin reading that tomorrow, but I really liked 11/22/63.  Especially that it scared the crap out of me.  And I wish it hadn’t ended.  Jake was a lovely character.  He had a lot of strength and loyalty.  I didn’t want to leave his world(s).  But eventually I came to page 842 and was left with only the “Afterword” (which is always fulfilling for a geek like me).  I left the world(s) of Jake and space time continuums, threads, butterfly effects, and lost love.  Back into good old 2014.  Sure, 2014 is only five days old, but it’s still the “good old” reality.

The idea of ghosts, echoes, and harmonies existing in the world is something I could read about forever.  Don’t misunderstand, the story is not quite a ghost story, but the idea of shadows, ghosts, lingering and leaving their imprints.  We are ghosts.  We leave our memories wherever we have been.  The walls can talk-we just forget to listen a lot of the time.  When was the last time you sat in your own home, with complete quiet?  All the televisions, computers, smart phones, and video games turned off.  Just listening to the sound of your house, with all its settling and sounds of your family’s life breathing in and out in the quiet?  There’s something about reading a book in the silence, dedicated time for reading, that helps make the book come alive even more than when you read in a place with noise to pass the time.  Think about when you read a book (paper or virtual, though I still prefer the paper kind) while waiting at the doctor’s office.  Or on your lunch break in the office, removed from your coworkers, but still able to hear the ebb and flow of an office.  That reading is different than the reading you do at home, with everything turned off so your house is quiet.  The best reading is at night in the glow of a reading lamp, with the outside filled with darkness surrounding you and hiding reality so you can delve into the book’s reality.

And when the book is about alternate realities it’s even better.  The science of 11/22/63, when Jake is speaking with Zack about the strings, is a conversation that was blessedly short and not overly scientific.  When I even briefly think about chaos theory and string theory, my mind starts to swirl and I question the world far too much.  I like my ignorance in this area, thank you very much.  The last 100 pages of the story raised my blood pressure (my doc won’t be happy about that, it’s been running high just lately) but it’ll calm itself as the vividness starts to fade.

Some stories never fade, do they?  It haunts me constantly.  I swear, when I walk Rex, I think he knows about Pennywise because he is very leery of storm drains and sewers.  Does he know that we all float down here?  I don’t think I actually need my tattered copy of Night Shift to read “One for the Road”.  It’s pretty much there in my memory whenever I want it.  “Strawberry Spring” too.  Hubby even recalled “One for the Road”.  He read it to me, over a decade ago, one night to help me fall asleep (yes, Uncle Stevie helps me sleep).  I mentioned it the other evening and he remembered it.  He remembered reading it.  It lingers with me…is she still waiting for her goodnight kiss?

11/22/63 will linger for a while, not like It has since I first read that in 1986, but for a while at least.  Then there’s Doctor Sleep.  It’s getting to harder to keep my reserved King books in reserve.  I’m curious.  I want to enter their worlds.  But the reserved ones will have to keep.  Plus, Uncle Stevie keeps on writing.  And I keep on reading.

 

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I’m a little macabre

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on October 4, 2012| 4 Comments »

Last night younger son and I were working on the K’Nex.  We’re on step 79 of 182.  It’s a great way of teaching patience.  As we’re putting the little rods into the connectors, he was quoting :Georgie” from the movie of Stephen King’s It.  “It’s all your fault Bill.  You let It get me, Bill.  It’s all your fault.”  He does this perfectly.  He even looks like the actor who played Georgie.  We’ve got to put him in a little yellow slicker and rain hat one day.  As he keeps doing this, I’m giggling and telling him he’s a wee bit creepy.  I wanted to make sure younger son knew where this was coming from so I asked him if he knew I meant “creepy” in a good way, that he was being funny.  He said, “Yeah, Mom, I know.”  Then I asked if it bothered him that some people look at us like we’re a little bit odd.  His response?  “No, it doesn’t bother me at all. I’m a little macabre.”

Older son comes into the dining room (because everyone keeps their four foot K’Nex set-up on the dining room table).  He had been working on his comic strips.  I asked him if the “odd” moniker bothered him.  He said no and then, in the style of the Addams Family, crossed his arms and snapped twice.  I love my sons.

Tonight I decided to watch Clue.  As younger son heard the music, he started quoting Mrs. White.  “Flames, flames, on the side of my face.  Heaving breaths, heaving…flames…”  Yeah, a little bit creepy and a little bit kooky.  And that’s fine by me.

I’ve never enjoyed the pressure of conforming.  It is tiring to try to keep up with what other people think one should be like.  I don’t want to live my life trying to be someone I’m not.  I try not to judge and when others give the impression they are judging me, I just don’t have time for that either.  Hubby and I teach our sons to do what they want to do and be who they want to be (yes, lyrics from the theme song from The Addams Family movie).

Conforming is far too tiring.  Life needs to be enjoyed and you have to figure out your own standards, whether that be through religion or spirituality or common sense or whatever guiding force you follow.  Then enjoy life.

And one quote from Clue, because I love this movie and it’s just so quotable…

Mustard: Is this place for you?
Wadsworth: Indeed no, sir. I’m merely a humble butler.
Mustard: What exactly do you do?
Wadsworth: I butle, sir.
Mustard: Which means what?
Wadsworth: The butler is head of the kitchen and dining room. I keep everything tidy.

P.S.  The boys loved learning that Wadsworth, aka Tim Curry, also played Pennywise.

 

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My Lunch with Christopher Walken

Posted in My lunch with..., tagged , , , , , , , on July 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Our lunch would be cooked by Chris and probably involve spaghetti.  I watched The Best of Christopher Walken on Saturday Night Live tonight and the man is simply hysterical.  Even with a crap sketch, Walken gives a classic performance.  My favorite skit on SNL with him is one called “The Continental”.   “It’s time to meet The Continental!”  I know he played the character more than once and if memory serves, in one of the skits, I think he loses it a wee bit.

Someone on youtube has cut together ten minutes of Christopher saying “is more cowbell”.  We are quite fascinated by this man.  I loved him in The Dead Zone.  Obviously his classic scene in Pulp Fiction.  Sleepy Hollow.  Love all of his work. As the dad in Blast from the Past-he just makes sense in that role.  I would love to see him on stage.  And I love when he dances.

Some quotes attributed to him from IMDb that are interesting…

“I never was a big fan of school, to tell you the truth. I never had kids, but I suspect if I did, I wouldn’t encourage them to go to school. I never liked it myself. I was always grateful for being taught to read. I figured that once that had been done for me, that’s the big thing. A little bit of adding, subtracting, multiplying, that sort of thing. And you have to learn to write, at least a letter. But beyond that, I think people are over-educated. I think education will come if you want it. I read what I want to read, so that’s what I know about. You can’t know everything, so you should concentrate on what you’re interested in. The whole concept of general education-I think it makes for vague minds.”

“I use punctuation, but I finish the sentence and put [in] a period but it’s not necessarily where somebody else would. I think everybody should talk the way they want. You go to school and you all sit there and all learn to do the same thing. I guess it’s necessary but it’s too bad also, in a way. Kids, you know, get kind of restrained in a lot of ways. I probably wouldn’t get a job as an English teacher.”

I would LOVE him as an English teacher.  Could you imagine how entertaining The Turn of the Screw could be if taught to you by Chris?  I might finally like that book!  I don’t know that people are over-educated, I think we may put too much emphasis on the need for degrees.  I like the idea of learning about what you are interested in and pursuing that for the fun of it.  I believe in that idea.  I love learning about different stuff.  I plan on learning the rest of my life and I do try to instill this love of learning in my sons.  They do feel restrained in school which is why hubby and I take them on grand adventures.

It would be fun to learn with Chris about any topic.  Referring back to his quote, and not having kids, I think he would have been an extremely interesting parent.  Imagine himwith his own kid…”So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something. His ass. Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the watch to you.” (Pulp Fiction)

If the quotes on IMDb are accurate, he has a down-to-earth way of living life and I would enjoy that same lifestyle if I could.  Except with my family.  I’m more interested in people than he is.  He probably wouldn’t talk much during the lunch.  But supposedly he’s a good cook so at least the eats would be good.

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How did I miss that one?

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , on April 3, 2012| 3 Comments »

If you haven’t read the post titled It, read that one first because this one piggybacks onto that post.  If you choose not to read It first, don’t complain to me when this post makes no sense.

What an un-attentive reader I’ve been.  I usually study the cover art of a King book to predict what clues it could hold.  Yes, I am that dorky.  I make my predictions.  Only a few minutes ago I summoned up the courage to put the dust jacket back on 11/22/63 to put it back on the shelf.  As I gently wrapped the jacket around the back cover of the book, I looked at the news articles on that side.  I read beyond the titles of the articles for the first time.  I read the reporters’ names.  The name of the reporter for the story titled “Americans Breathe Sigh of Relief” is Philip.

Philip Scudder.

This time I was literally stopped in my tracks as I was walking toward the bookshelf.

Never falling asleep tonight.

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It

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on April 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

One of my favorite parts of the full body of work by Uncle Stevie is his ability to intertwine his stories together.  If you read Apt Pupil, the Nazi’s accountant is a fancy banker named Andy Dufrense before he ended up in Shawshank.  There are the many stories that take place in Castle Rock.   A fictional town that has had its share of bad luck.  To me it’s fun because I’m in on the joke, so to speak.  I get the cross-references and it usually makes me recall another character, event, or emotional response to his writing from the past that makes me smile, or grimace as the case may be.  And as I’ve written before (I think), Uncle Stevie’s books help me to sleep.  I feel comforted knowing my lot in life is not as bad as the characters.  It soothes me.  Gives me perspective.

I got 11/22/63 for Christmas.  Big bulking book from dear Stephen King.  I opted not to put this one into the reserves.  My reserves are select titles by Uncle Stevie that are unread for the day when the man finally does stop putting pen to paper.  I want to still have a “new” King book to read.  But for whatever reason 11/22/63 made it into the reading pile.  It’s not a very deep pile as I am realistic about how much time I have for reading.

The past few Sundays I have taken the book with me and read while the boys were having their swim lessons.  I’ll be honest-it took a few tries to get hooked.  What I wonder at this exact moment is did I take a while to get hooked because I was keeping an eye on my sons in the pool or because I felt the fear the book would create?

For me, there was something uneasy about the book from the get-go.  Obviously from the cover it involved changing the events of that historic day in Dallas.  I don’t know how that turns out by the way.  Because tonight I got to page 129 and was stopped dead in my tracks.  Or was it eyeballs?  Stopped dead in my eyeballs?  Even now as I checked the book to see the page number I touched it as if I would be burned.

Uncle Stevie wrote about Georgie Denbrough on page 129.  He wrote about Pennywise.  I have a picture of Tim Curry as Pennywise on my desk that one of my students gave me.  It’s of Pennywise  photoshopped into the movie for Bring It On.  You see the humor, I’m sure.  Made me laugh my ass off when I first saw it.  I enjoyed the movie version of It.  Not stellar but it doesn’t hurt to watch on a Saturday afternoon.  I love the cast, but the problem with trying to put It on film is the terror is too deep (in my humble opinion) to capture.  So while I like the movie, the book is what scared the crap out of me and continues to in so many ways.

I connected to this book instantly.  I could have joined the Losers club easily.  Probably could have been a charter member.  I held onto my faith in the belief system of childhood for a very long time.  Truth be told, I still have more of a childlike belief system than an adult one.  I love this book and hate this book.  The magic of childhood and the horror of childhood vividly live in the characters with such ease.  I see myself reflected in each of the characters.  I see myself reflected in the words typed on the many, many pages.  I have read this book several times but the most recent time I read it happened over a decade ago.  I don’t know when I will reread it.  I know I will, but I don’t know when.  Once I gave birth to my second son I knew it would be quite a long time till I could read It again.  When their childhoods are over and safely tucked away in baby books and scrapbooks, I’ll be able to read It again.  That was the plan.  I wouldn’t have to interact too closely with the horrors of It for another decade.

Then Uncle Stevie wrote about Georgie in 11/22/63.  I couldn’t even finish the sentence I was reading.  The story of It came flooding back into my mind, heart, and soul so quickly, it was, if you’ll pardon the expression, a watershed moment.  I started shaking as all the events in that book flooded my mind at one time.  I saw it coming with the first mention of the town of Derry, but thought there’s no way he could really intertwine it with any detail.  I tried to recall details, like names or places, but all I could picture were the Barrens and the standpipe.  I thought no biggie, a few passing mentions of Derry.   But I was wrong.  I couldn’t even finish the sentence.

I was sitting there on my couch, shaking, crying, trying to catch my breath because Uncle Stevie knocked the wind out of me.  After a few minutes, I walked down the hall, turned on the light with the pretty frosted glass dome, and with a sense of fear and doom went in to check on my sons.  Both sleeping soundly in the shark bedroom, both audibly breathing that deep and constant breathing of a sleep not filled with worry or fear.  I still put my hand on each boy’s chest to feel the steady rise and fall of his lungs filling with and emptying of air.

How does this man do it?  How does he summon up fear so readily in so many people?  I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight.  I’m not being facetious.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to fall asleep.  Each time I close my eyes, I see It.  In all of its forms.  I see Georgie, Bill, and Bev.  The pharmacist-ooh, maybe that’s why I don’t care for pharmacists. Oh, gentle reader, if I could convey how frightened this man made me this evening I too would make my living putting pen to paper.

I want to know how the book ends-please don’t be an ass and write it in a comment.  I will finish 11/22/63.  But it will have to wait until it’s not dark.  And when I can hear my boys playing the whole time.  I don’t even want to touch the book to put it back in the Stephen King bookshelves.  Yes, he has his own private bookshelves in my house.

Georgie and his paper boat.  The rain.  The sewer.  We all float down here.  I didn’t know until this evening how deeply It had worked it’s way into my being.  I love that about books, a story’s ability to infiltrate your memory and linger with you the rest of your life.  The stories pop up into your daily existence usually when you least expect it, as those types of things are wont to do.  As I probably wrote before, to paraphrase Uncle Stevie from an old interview (or foreword or afterword), everyone has a filter in their brain that sorts through each day’s events.  Certain things fall through and others are too big to fit through the holes of the sieve.  The scary stuff stays in his brain so that’s what he writes about in his stories.  And I love to read the scary stuff so it’s been a long relationship for the two of us.  I just couldn’t have guessed how large It was to allow it to linger so closely to my retrievable memory.  To be able to be pulled forth in a violent manner after reading only a few sentences describing some key events in the history of Derry.

I need to know what happens next.  But during the day.  With the sun shining.  Happily I have some vacation time this week into next.  Maybe one of the days will be sunny.  I can hole up in my room, with the covers wrapped around me, and read where the storyteller wants to take me.

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Mediocrity’s not that bad.

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on April 1, 2012| 1 Comment »

I had a thought today.  I know, there’s an accomplishment right there.  I reflected about mediocrity once again.  It’s not always a bad thing.  If one is mediocre in a particular area, you don’t have to achieve anything all that amazing within that area.  The bar is most definitely lowered and the pressure is off of you.  So as I reflect about my strengths and weaknesses, pressures are falling off in all directions.

I’m not saying I’m mediocre at everything.  I can’t think of anything at the moment that I excel at, but that’s besides the point.  The point is that the extreme pressures I put on myself all the time are not necessary.  People have been telling me this for years (my hubby in particular) but this is the type of moment that one has to come to in her own time.  I suspect it will take several weeks for it to really sink in, but at the moment it’s a nice realization.

One thing I’m good at that improves my lot in life in no way is pulling obscure quotes from movies.  I can’t actually do anything with this ability, but it does give me a good chuckle when I need it.  I’m also not bad at Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.  Years of video retail does this to one’s brain.  Years of watching movies does it.  I adore movies.  I stopped relaxing when I watch them over the past few years.  Don’t know why, I suppose I’ll ponder that soon enough.

Another thing I’m good at is reading.  Is that the dorkiest sentence you’ve ever read, or what?  But I recall the stuff I’ve read, like I do with quotes from a movie.  I can recall the story, details, and characters in almost a flashback by simply looking at the book.  It’s like a quick catch-up with an old friend.

I visited some old friends today at Tookey’s Bar.  I reread “One for the Road” and actually relaxed while reading the story.  It was nice.  I love Uncle Stevie’s vernacular in this story.  The one character uses “I says” a lot.  There’s a “since Hector was a pup” in the story too.  Plus the vampires don’t hurt.

Today I reflected on mediocrity, did laundry, drove Mom’s taxi, read a little.  I embraced the simplicity of mediocrity.  Today was a mediocre day and that’s not bad.

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Rite of Passage

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on March 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The boys and I recently read Creepshow, the old school horror comic book by Stephen King.  It was a key part of my quest for the boys to rediscover and embrace fiction.  Find literature the boys would enjoy and connect to and they will read-Poe, Grimm, Beowolf, and Creepshow.  Tonight we decided to have a Saturday night movie night.  Oldest son asked if I had the movie of Creepshow.  Yes…and after solemn promises not to use any of the curse words they might hear, I told them that they could watch the movie.

We set up the shark tent in the living room and the boys camped out with popcorn.

I remember what a thrill it was to be allowed to stay up late on a weekend and watch something “grown-up”.  The stories in the comic book and in the film are more horror than slasher.  You don’t really see a lot of blood, there isn’t much of it.  The most is in “The Crate” and “Father’s Day”, but since it’s done in comic book style it’s not overly horrifying.  The boys have not jumped yet though I did in one of the stories!  I love being scared.  It seems that my sons may enjoy being scared too.

Oldest son said people think movies are better because you can feel the action coming.  Well, sort of.  You don’t have to imagine it for yourself.  That’s why I love books.  My mind makes up scarier special effects.

The movie has classic horror elements.  Not a lot of dialogue (comic book) but a lot of visuals (comic book).  Tons of wonderful music, sound effects, and some great make-up.  Lots of great psychological horror.  Much of it may go over the boys’ heads, but it will help lay the foundation.  The cockroaches are getting under the boys’ skin.  Hee hee, they may have the creepie-crawlies for the evening.  Then again it’s called Creepshow.

Tonight was a fun, memorable night.  My sons have been introduced to Uncle Stevie.  We even briefly discussed It and Pennywise.  Oldest son asked if we could watch the one with Pennywise.  Soon, I said.  Soon.

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Release adding to simplicity

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , on February 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, I feel better.  I don’t know about you, but last night’s post really offered me release.  I know people read it (thank you!) yet even if it had only gone into the great big void of the internet, it helped me.  I think that’s one of the things I enjoy about writing a post.  It can offer a cathartic release for the soul.  Not knowing exactly who will read each post, if in fact anyone does, blogging is a very selfish project.  At least the way I look at it.

Throughout the day, I felt stress leaving my body.  I reflected over the course of the day about the post and felt warmth filling my spirit which worked quite like a hot water bottle for the soul.  I missed Brigs just as much today as I did yesterday, but the emotional baggage I had attached to him is fading.  This is a good thing because then I can begin to enjoy the memories of him and the happiness he brought more purely, without the crap.

I have been asked by several people if we have gotten a new dog yet.  Nope.  I have looked at the listings at our local shelter.  Little yippee dogs-not for us-or pit bulls-also not for us.  You can list it as an American Staffordshire terrier but still a pit bull.  I know that the dog is usually a sweetie and only becomes mean through the treatment it receives from an owner, but you have to wonder why the dog is in the shelter.  I’ve also looked at other pet adoption websites and there are some sweet dogs listed on it, but crying while reading the websites tells me I am not ready.

But at least I am ready to begin letting go of the remnants of hard memories.  Letting go is a lifelong process in my book.  There are always events in a life that cause strife and then you have to deal with them.  Sometimes the way I deal with them is to bury them deep down so I don’t have to work through them right away.  Maybe I’m not ready to, maybe I’m being lazy, maybe I’m scared to process it all.  So every now and then I work through some big chunk of stuff in my memory.  It’s sort of like purging the crap out of my house.  Time often helps process the hard stuff just like it makes the stuff in my house magically become crap that I can get rid of without regret.

Simplicity in life can be hard to achieve within my society.  It can be done but it means going against the mainstream and ignoring mass media and aspects of the consumer-based society.  I fall into the trap of “needing” things that are truly wants.  Then there is either buyer’s remorse or the need to purge items from our home.  It’s challenging to teach this to my sons when I still am struggling with it myself.  Happily, they help me get better at it.  As I try to teach them about wants and needs, it reinforces it for myself.

And so Brigs keeps helping me, teaching me, loving me unconditionally.  Isn’t that the heart of what Uncle Stevie reminded me of a few weeks ago?

“May be she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.”
― Stephen King, Pet Sematary

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Uncle Stevie comes to the rescue

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on February 6, 2012| 2 Comments »

“May be she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.”
― Stephen King, Pet Sematary

The first dog I had was named Tasha.  She was a fox terrier.  The curly, or wire-haired, type.  She was adorable.  She lived till the ripe old age of ten.  When she went, it was the first experience I had with losing someone close to me.  Yes, she was a dog.  I do differentiate between humans and animals, but she was the first living creature I had seen every day from the age of two to pass.  Now, at the age of twelve, I didn’t get to see her anymore.  Pets do so much in a person’s life.  For all the many years you live with them, they fill your days with happiness, laughter, and good times, good times.

At the end there is pain.  But the pain you feel disappears just as Uncle Stevie wrote.  The good memories begin.  Tasha was a fun dog who let me dress her up in doll clothes and she would sit in the doll stroller.  She had a lot of patience with me.  As she got older, she gained weight (don’t we all?) and spent more time sleeping (don’t we all?).  When her time came, it sucked.  I cried and it made me mad that she couldn’t live forever.  It was not the first time I had experienced death, but I hadn’t known the relatives who had died, they weren’t a part of my daily existence so I really didn’t notice (at that young age) any change now that they were gone.  I noticed that my dog was no longer there.

Now that I’m older I realize that with the passing of the relatives, it does impact my daily existence.  As each generation passes, you move up one.  You take on new familial responsibilities.  Perhaps not overtly, not things you notice every day, but overall you move up in the family tree.  You have more branches growing and suddenly you are the one who is supposed to fill in the names in the book.

I think that’s why pets are a good thing for a family.  They help you to learn about loving unconditionally and how to grieve when the time comes.  It does not make the loss of a loved one any easier, but you have an understanding of the grieving process.  You understand the feelings of anger, frustration, sadness.  The experience of not being able to do a damn thing more than what you tried already.

Tomorrow the second dog I have loved will be with us no more.  Brigs is twelve and has been in a lot of pain the past year or so.  More than we probably realized, more than he may have shown until quite recently.  And it is time.  Our youngest is afraid of the growth on his head and our oldest recites a little mantra before he goes downstairs to visit him.  It’s hard for me to look at this beautiful dog with the memories of his happy, fun life in my head while he struggles to stand up.  Brigs hasn’t been upstairs for a year-he can’t handle walking up or down the stairs.  He’s been on thyroid meds for five years and insulin twice a day for three years.  There is a litany of issues this sweet dog has been dealing with but that’s not the part to focus on now.

Tomorrow we will learn about where the pain stops and the good memories begin.  Like when he ate my husband’s underwear.  Or ate the chocolate.  Or ate his flea collar.  Or ate half a dozen dog beds, including one that was obscenely expensive and guaranteed to be chew proof.  He ripped that thing apart, stuffing everywhere, within twelve hours.  I called the company and the very nice guy on the phone asked if the bed had arrived.  I told him yes.  He asked if my dog, Brigadoon (I splurged for the embroidered name if memory serves), liked the bed.  I told him he thought it was delicious and did they mean it when they said it was guaranteed?  He asked how long the bed lasted and I told him it didn’t make it through the night.  They happily refunded my money.  Anything he could eat, he did.  Brigs still has an iron stomach.  The rest of him just doesn’t work so well.

Once he ate the boys’ crayons.  Very colorful poop.

He’s allergic to acorns.  They cause him to have convulsions.  He has never been able to enjoy our shady back yard because the two oak trees drop lots of acorns and he thinks the acorns are kibble.  Silly dog.

We’ll think about the time the boys colored him with the red magic marker.  We’ll think about the “puppy Olympics” he would do in the house.  He would run from one end of the house to the other as fast as he could and jump up on the chaise at the one end.  We had a perfect mold of his ass in the wall from where he slammed into it over and over again.  I have the sheet rock to repair the wall.  I’ve had it for over a year.  Just can’t bring myself to repair it.

In their young lives, the boys have lost two cats.  They have vague memories of the experience.  When their grandmother, my wonderful mother-in-law, passed, we told them about it but didn’t have them experience the viewing or funeral.  They were too young.  Hell, I had nightmares for months after she passed.

It didn’t make sense.  I loved her and we got along really well.  Why would she be chasing me in my dreams?  Had she not really liked me?  It haunted me for months.  My husband and I discussed what could be causing the nightmares but couldn’t come up with a reason that made sense.  Then a few months later my husband called me from his dad’s house and he was very excited.  He was helping his father close out the accounts and he discovered I hadn’t cashed my birthday check from my mother-in-law.  Well, if there was one thing Mom couldn’t stand, it was an uncashed check.  I found the check, cashed it, and bought some shoes in honor of her.  Nightmares stopped.

Tomorrow the boys will have their first first-hand experience with death.  They will be sad, frustrated, angry, and then hopefully happy as they remember Brigs as he was, not as the old, hurting dog he became.  I will not let them read Pet Sematary, hell, I can’t read it anymore.  Now that I have young sons, I can’t read it.  I’ll read it again when they are older.  But we will take Uncle Stevie’s words and embrace them.  We will let the pain end and the good memories begin.  Not the end of life but the end of pain.

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