For the love of an old dog

My best friend is walking a little slower these days. The dog who once drove me crazy begging for her dinner, now mostly sniffs it and needs to be coaxed to eat. She is deaf. She gets confused. She still gets excited to go for walks, but when we get four houses down the street, she's ready to go back home again. In the morning, she pauses at the top of the stairs, nervous that her legs might not work the way they used to.

So, I carry her down the stairs. And clean the floor when her bladder gives out. And hand-feed her scrambled eggs when she doesn't want to eat. And massage her stiff hips.

There are Good Days and what I optimistically call Less Good Days. But I'll be there for all the days until the end, making her as comfortable and happy as I can. And when there is no more comfort and happiness to be had, I'll be the one who has to decide that it's the end.

This is the deal we make when we love. This is the brutal contract we sign when we open our hearts. Whether we adopt a springy young thing or, like we did with Gracie, adopt a senior dog, it's pretty much guaranteed that they will leave and we will be shattered.

My husband and I walked into the SPCA four years ago and she was waiting for us. She chose us. And when the sign on her cage said "senior" - I winced. I winced because I didn't want to feel this helpless pain so soon. I wanted at least a decade with this crazy, speckled, toothless mutt. But she was our dog and she made that clear. So we brought her home and bought a bigger bed so she could sleep with us and we promised to be grateful for however long we got. We agreed to the deal.

But now I want to amend the contract. I want to negotiate for more time.

I'm dreading the day when there is no one waiting outside the bathroom door for me. The day when there is no one using me as a pillow as I binge-watch Breaking Bad. What is the point of 11 am if there is no walk with Grace? My shadow will be gone and a piece of me will be gone with her.

But that time is not now. Now, my job is to care for her in this final chapter, for however long that is. My job is to put her comfort above my sadness. I am here for her, in these times that are much less fun than the hikes and trips to the beach that we used to have. I don't turn away from the hard parts, it's my responsibility to be as devoted to her as she has always been to me.

This is love in action: I rub her back and give her medication and clean the floor for the third time today. I pester our vet with endless questions. I try to be thankful for these days, even as I know the heartbreak is coming.

The heartbreak is always coming.

This is what it means to be truly alive. To show up and feel what it is to be human - to not turn away because it's unpleasant. We have to surrender and lean into the whole of it. We fully experience love and loss, joy and pain, happiness and suffering. There is no way to have one without the other. They are intrinsically linked and no amount of negotiating with the universe will unravel them. Trust me. I've tried.

We are all brave as hell--those of us who love so entirely. We expect to be broken by our love. But we still do it, again and again, offering up our tender hearts, our endless devotion and our unconditional love for those wise souls who teach us how to be better humans.

And really, I'm not sure that there is a more beautiful way to be broken.

Now and then: lessons from a shelter dog

Three years ago today, my own personal guru moved into our house. My husband and I went to the animal shelter just to "look."

We went to look for a puppy. What we found was an eight-year-old malnourished little mutt with eyes that were two different colors. She was not at all what we wanted. We couldn’t imagine adopting a senior dog and having to endure the loss of her so soon. We hadn't even completely recovered from the loss of Cleo a year earlier.

But when we sat with Grace in the courtyard of the shelter, I burst into tears. Jeremy immediately knew that this dog was our dog, because whenever something important happens --  I burst into tears. We decided that we didn't care how old she was. Whatever time we could have with this sweet soul was completely worth it.

We paid our $50 and we took home our Catahoula leopard dog/blue heeler/who knows what else.

We joyfully surrendered to the unknown.

But Grace was kind of a mess.

We knew very little about her past, other than the fact that she had been living on the streets for a while. Her claws were so long they wrapped around and dug into the pads of her feet. Half of her teeth had to be pulled because they were rotted. She didn’t know how to play. The sound of clapping made her cower. She had terrible nightmares that left her snarling and whimpering and snapping at anything she could reach. Life had not been easy for this dog.

Even with that history, watching her come into her own over the past three years has taught me incredible lessons about stillness, joy, acceptance, love, and indeed -- grace.

She reminds me that everyone has a past, sometimes wonderful and sometimes challenging. We need to acknowledge it, learned from it, and then let go. I don't know exactly what Grace has gone through. She has a deep affection for the sound of an ice cream container being opened, so she's clearly got some fond memories from her old life, too. But really, the details are irrelevant.

That's the amazing thing about her. Grace doesn't care if you're divorced or you got fired or your parents sucked at showing affection. She just cares about this moment right here. How it feels to be present together. Nothing else matters to her.

As I transition from total denial of my former acting career -- to embracing it and defining its place in my current life -- this is an incredibly valuable lesson.

We all carry connections to our past. As we should. Those experiences made us who we are and homage should be paid. Grace still gets excited when she sees a dumpster since that was presumably the only way she ate for a while. Similarly, I still retain some of my old acting skills like hitting a mark and memorizing dialogue effortlessly. But those things don't need to be in the foreground anymore. They don't need to take precedence over what is going on - just here, just now.

So, Grace and I learn how to put our pasts in the proper place. I still love and accept her when she feels the need to defend her food, and she does the same for me when I roll my eyes at the red carpet coverage of the Oscars. Then we both take a deep breath and feel gratitude that everything that ever happened brought us to this moment right here.

And there is a lot to be grateful for. Grace reminds me that just going for a walk can be an absolutely thrilling experience.

And sometimes sitting quietly on the porch and watching the birds is the best way to spend an afternoon.

And when you love someone unconditionally, you wait for them right outside the bathroom door, because it's just nice to be close by.

She teaches me that we are all in this together - this struggle to live the best way that we can while deciding how we want to respond to the world around us. We might not have control over everything, but we control our perspective and how we want to live in the uncertainty. Despite everything, Grace has chosen wholehearted joy.

And since we are all in this together, love is always the answer. Whatever wounds we have can be soothed by the love that comes from waiting outside the bathroom door for someone  - when you know they would totally wait for you, too.

Happy birthday, Gracie.

ETA: Grace passed away in 2016, but she holds a permanent place in my heart. 

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• Beyond the Bed, Bath and Beyond

I can't do everything

I've always been one of those people who gets overwhelmed by the world. I think my emotional nature is a left-over occupational hazard from being an actor during my formative years. For 18 years I needed to be able to cry on cue, and it seems those floodgates just never closed. Suffering of any kind leaves me weak in the knees and injustice makes me feel like clawing my skin off.

I still have a touch of the drama, apparently.

But I realized that I can't just shut my eyes to the suffering in the world. I tried putting my hands over my ears and singing until it went away. That didn't work. So, instead of crying about it, I've decided there might be a little something I can do. But what? And how do I handle the fact that I can't fix everything? How do I save the whales and cure hunger and stop global warming? I'm one small person so how do I make a dent? How do I pick just one thing in this sea of need? It's useless, right?

But then I read this:

I am only one, But still I am one. I cannot do everything, But still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.

- Edward Everett Hale

Hells yes, Mr. Hale.

I started volunteering at my local non-kill animal shelter. Which happens to be the place where we met our darling girl, Grace. I figure that I owe them, big time.

So, I cuddle cats and clean litter boxes and let puppies chew on my fingers. I address thank you notes and fill out donation forms. I thought it would be too sad to work in a shelter. It's not. It's joyful. Even the photocopying is joyful. And it is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. They are short-staffed during the holidays, so I'll be there to try to fill in the gaps.

The other day, I was opening up their mail and organizing the checks that came in. When donations arrived for $200 or $300, my heart leapt. That would buy so many treats! New beds! Pay for more surgeries!

But when I opened the checks for $5. That's when I lost my shit. That's when I cried.

Because those people understand so much better than I do that even a little bit helps. Those people, regardless of their financial situation, made the decision to do what they can and speak up for what they believe in.

I want to hug every one of them. Because they remind me of something that I don't want to ever forget. It's good to have empathy, but it's not so good when I drown in it and apathetically throw up my hands in defeat. The whole point of life is to wake up and do something meaningful. Make the moment count.

I can't cure cancer and I can't make sure every animal is in a forever home for Christmas. But I can spend twenty minutes talking to the new scared kitten that just came in and encouraging her to eat some food. I can write a note to the man who donated $5 and tell him that his donation meant something. That he means something.

And if I can do that in this season - this season that at its core is about love and giving - that's all I really need.

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