Haunted by a Potato

It has been over a month since I returned from my first trip to Ireland and I find myself thinking about potatoes a lot.  Make no doubt about it.  Potatoes, as inanimate as they are, can haunt.

Like so many Americans, I expected (even felt entitled to) a vacation that was relaxing and rejuvenating and filled with fabulous scenery and beautiful landscapes.   Certainly, Ireland has all of those things and I am grateful to have enjoyed them for ten days.  But, Ireland also has potatoes.   Despite the fact that some Irish (or transplants from other European countries) wish to turn Ireland into another Foodie Capital of the known Universe, the potato still sits silently by.   It competes for another message that has little to do with paying far too much for a small portion of gourmet food whose aesthetic presentation make an excellent match to a wonderful bouquet of flavors:

While I had heard of the great potato famine of the nineteenth century, I failed miserably in appreciating the tragedy of it until I spent some time in the country that bore its history.   The penal laws of the 17th and 18th centuries set the stage for the Irish to lose one million of its citizens to starvation and another one million to emigrate away in the 1840's and early 1850's.  In one of the classic ugly stories of one flavor of Christianity pitting agains the other, the Protestants denied Irish Catholics the right to own or lease land, live close to a corporate town, or vote.   Despite emancipation in the early 1800's, Catholics continued to struggle on increasingly small pieces of land, paying high rents, and retreating further and further into subsistence farming until all that could feed a family was a crop of potatoes planted on parcels as small as a single acre.

All those potatoes were of only one species, so that when the potato blight came to Ireland, it took down almost the entire crop season after season, leaving fewer and fewer seed potatoes for the following season and decimating hope in greater and greater measure.

Despite the fact that a majority of Irish land supported successful crops of wheat, oats, livestock, and other bounty that had nothing to do with potatoes, a large portion of the Irish population starved, or left, and many who left then starved or died in passage.

As an incredible bounty of food shipped out of the country, insufficient or no help at all shipped in.   The British government, whether by incompetence or political chokehold, could not handle the disaster, and the tragedy of broken and lost life continued, year after year.

The great potato famine was not the first of its magnitude in the world, but the fact that the reasons for the tragedy originate in the corresponding tragedy of divisiveness among Christians makes it all the worse.   One would think that modern Christians, having the great Irish potato famine in their historical portfolios, would strive every day to overcome any barriers that stood in the way of unity.

Yet, we don't.   'Love one another' does not have an exception clause to it.  We need to try harder.   I think the greatest teacher of all time would have liked it that way.

Beautiful, Stubborn Older Lady

Belle is a sweet old southern gal who just happened to spend most of her life in Washington State.   She has been a loving, gentle soul from the day I met her... except when you dare cross her OR you happen to be another dog interested in a leadership role in her vicinity.  Then, you are in trouble.

While this behavior can be trouble in our "blame the dog" society, Belle has never changed her mind about protecting her person (me), not once, in her long walk through this life.  Her unquestioning loyalty has been an inspiration to me on many occasions when I just simply wanted to walk away from one difficulty or another.

Now that she is fourteen years plus some into her dog's life, I am learning about another inspiration that she has to offer me.   She has a cancerous tumor the size of a baseball (and then some) on her left rear leg.  She has a raging infection somewhere in her body that is sending her liver values through the roof.   Yet, still she ambles along, refusing to accept that dying is near.   Unlike mere people, she smells the cancer and knows it grows on her body, yet she dismisses it as long as she can still walk, feel, eat.... she simply has some more living to do and is approaching the end of her life as we all should... one day at a time, until there are no days left.

The gentle fire that still burns in her eyes and all that black, gold, and white fur that keeps growing even in the midst of decline... makes her beautiful beyond measure.

I am fortunate to know more than one beautiful older woman in my world.  Only one is a dog.  The rest are human as we all are. Yet, they hold onto light, vibrance, energy as if they were twenty years old.   True beauty comes from that light within.  And, I have been permanently reminded that just because my body ages does not at all mean that the light needs to age along with it.  

Friend or Foe?

Suppose that one day, someone knocks on your door.  Before you can answer, she slips in and makes herself at home.  She doesn't much like your furniture, so she strings a hammock from one wall to the other and settles in for the night.

While you think this behavior is very strange, she doesn't have a large truck or a bunch of burly guys with her or any obvious weapons, so you let her be.  The first night passes, the morning comes, the sun rises, and all seems to be at peace.

The next night, you start to notice that your uninvited house guest has some funny eating habits.  She is vomiting quite a bit.  Since she is small and delicate, you don't notice any smell or stains on the carpet, so you, in an unusually hospitable moment, let it go.

Another night passes, the morning comes, the sun rises, and life is stranger, but still at peace.  Your new house guest is still vomiting, but despite the fact that no offensive smell or stain comes along with it, you start to notice something even stranger about her.  See, the truth is, you have dozens of uninvited house guests in the house.   And this latest and sweetest new one has a little bit of a mean streak lurking within.   You see... when she vomits, she tends to aim the vomit at one of your other unfortunate house guests.   That, in itself, is just disgusting, but what complicates matters is the fact that the vomit seems to have an exceptional ability to dissolve skin and flesh.   This, you notice, as one of your other houseguests goes from his healthy, happy self to nothing but scant, liquefied remains.

This is awful.  Horrible,  Gross.  Surely, you must now call the police or at the very least, throw this houseguest and her hammock out the door.  Good Riddance.

But then, as all rated R, low budget horror movies would dictate, the situation worsens before your very eyes.   Before you can excuse your guest to the great outdoors, she does the unthinkable.  She turns, grins, and eats those gross, liquefied remains.

Yet, still you debate.  Should I throw her out?  Should I just let her be?   Because, you see, in the middle of her feeding frenzy, she winked at you and promised you two things.  One:   she promises she will never come after you.  Two: she promises she will hunt and eliminate only those houseguests that are truly annoying you.

Thus, you ponder.   Keep her?  Kick her out?  Friend?  Foe?
What's your choice?

And, do you let her keep that pesky hammock strung between the walls?

The Clock Ticks Louder

Beginning in December, 2012, the clock started to tick.  At that time, Grandma Belle was 12 and a half years old.  I came home to a dog that could barely stumble out of the dog pen before collapsing. Her gums were an unfavorable and very pale pink.   I heaved her into the back of the Zoobaru as fast as my ailing back would muster and dashed her to the vet.  A temperature, an aspirated needle, and an hour later, the vet suggested thyroid cancer:  fast acting, untreatable, and deadly.   He said:  "It is just what happens to dogs nowadays when we take such good care of them that they live well beyond their intended years."   Nice bedside manner.  Such compassion.

The next day, the cytology and blood report had lots of big words in it, which naturally led to another set of recommended tests.  Meanwhile, Belle grew weaker, and I did what every self-respecting American with many choices does ... I tried another vet.  One series of antibiotics later and several agonizing days of waiting later, Belle's golf ball disappeared into the land of past and almost forgotten infections.  

From that day forward, I always heard the clock ticking round here.   Belle's arthritis was watched every more carefully.  Her incontinence caused panic, rather than a quick trip to the vet for what is, apparently, standard medication for these spayed girls who lose control of their bladders.   Some days, when Belle is slow to come out of the pen in the evening, I find that cold, hard fear lodged at the pit of my stomach, whispering:  Is today the day?

Over eighteen months have passed and although Belle has grown older and slower, there have been no more scares.   Until today.

I will never forget that single moment when, in the bright fall sunshine, I turned just in time to see Belle trot slowly by me, onto the garden path.  It was a moment when a ray of sun bounced off her rear leg at just the right angle to illuminate what was not normal there.   I will never forget the fear at the pit of every internal organ I own as I inspected her leg, discovering a ridiculously large mass lodged near the junction with her hip, covered in all that Belle bear fur.  I won't ever forget a round of trying to Google my way out of the problem.  Are there any baseball sized masses on google that turn out to be nothing at all?  Hardly.  Even Google can't offer that kind of hope.

Again, we dashed to the vet.  Three aspirations of the mass all showed an incredible amount of blood and abnormal cells in the baseball that was rudely inside my Belle.   The vet thought most likely it was a cancer that was ridiculously fast acting... a few days to two weeks, tops.  No real surgical alternatives.  No treatments.

24 hours later, the cytology and blood work say that this is not a baseball cancer that will kill Grandma Belle this weekend.  Instead, it is a more localized cancer... one that will steal her life at an undetermined time in the near future.

Uncertainty.  Sadness.  Grief. Fear.

How could I miss something that size for so long? What happened to those keen observation skills? Did they just get totally lost in my self-involved, busy life?  How exactly does one miss a baseball hanging off the leg of someone you love so deeply?   What an idiot I am.

The clock ticks very loudly now.  Even Lucky and Lady hear it.