Of Dogs and Seuss
I read today about the therapy dogs that traveled from Chicago to Connecticut this week to help in the comfort and theoretical recovery of the survivors of last week's tragedy.
These angelic animals have been on loan from Lutheran Church Charities in Addison, Illinois to the community of Newtown since Sunday. The organization that trains and provides these gentle pets started in 2008 when the dogs comforted those at Northern Illinois University after five students were killed by a gunman. It began with a handful of dogs and now includes 60 dogs in six states, according to the Chicago newspaper.
One line in the article stuck out to me: "Some children smiled for the first time in days as they pet the therapy dogs..."
I think about children . . . ages 5 through 10 . . . and how sad it is to imagine any child going four days . . . even four hours . . . without smiling. I know that these children are not the only sad children in the world. I know that there are children everywhere . . . everywhere . . . who are sad and smileless. The thought breaks my heart.
And I think about those soft and warm dogs, sitting patiently and contentedly while little hands reach out, tentatively at first, to stroke the silky fur or rub a velvet ear, edging closer and closer until a little arm reaches around a warm neck and a tender cheek feels that soft, plush coat and fear and worry and guilt and anxiety give way as eyes close and something that feels a little like peace creeps closer with every rise and fall of that wagging tale. Is there anything more reassuring than the steady thump-thump of a happy dog's tale on the floor? Well, aside from the deep throated purr of a half-sleeping cat, I mean?
And I know, in a tiny, removed way, a little bit about the numbness inside those children that has kept the smiles away from their faces. Maybe we all do - that dull, sensationless ache that spreads like Novacaine through your heart and keeps you from feeling anything at all because that's safer somehow than feeling what it is that you really truly feel.
I hope I am not assuming too much; I can not imagine what these children and adults have experienced. What I can imagine - what I remember - is how I felt once, myself, and how it felt to smile again.
I've talked about Johnny's leukemia. Probably too much. The marvelous, miraculous and blissful end of that story is best told in the full-bellied laugh of my precious granddaughter. Still, there was a time when my tender twenty-five year old heart had steeled itself against fear and pain and worry. Just before the Christmas after Johnny's diagnosis, he was back in the hospital with pneumonia. It was awful. And terrifying. But it was what it was, and we did what we did, and life kept ticking forward like it does. And the restoration of my smile came through two men for whom I will always have a tender spot in my heart because they returned smiles to my emotional repertoire.
One evening Johnny and I were in the playroom at the hospital, reading books together. There was a Dr. Seuss book there that I had seen but never read, Fox in Socks. As my almost four-year-old and I read that book together, we started to giggle. When we got to the part about the Noodles and the Poodles and the Tweedles and the Beetles in the Bottle in the fuddled-up Puddle, the giggling became uncontrollable. We laughed and re-read Seuss's magical words over and over again as something familiar began to rise up in my heart.
About that same time, just before or just after, I was at home and watching the Disney Channel with one or both of the boys. This was back in the earliest days of the Disney Channel, before Hannah and the Witches and whatever other marketing nonsense is on there now. Back in the early 80's, the Disney Channel was mostly repeated showings of old Disney movies and cartoons with a very few new shows sprinkled in. That Christmas, The Happiest Millionaire was one of those old movies. I'm a sucker for musicals anyway, but a musical with dancing Irishmen, boxing teenaged girls, and alligators in a Philadelphia mansion was more than enough to get me to sit down and watch. There is a moment when John, the Irish butler, has been narrating to the camera, and Fred MacMurray's character, Mr. Biddle, asks him who he's talking to. As John brushes the question off, MacMurray turns and peers into the invisible eye of the camera with a dubious expression. I burst out laughing, and something wonderful erupted inside of me. In the weeks that followed, while Johnny convalesced and returned home in time to enjoy a beautiful and bountiful Christmas with us, I thought back over and over again . . . and have continued in the past nearly 30 years to think over and over again . . . of the joy and light that was brought into my heart by a silly poem and a silly moment in a silly movie; a joy that wasn't silly at all, but was as real as the air I breathed into my lungs.
So thank you, Dr. Seuss and Mr. MacMurray, and to the noble and gentle canines from Chicago, for every smile, every eased heart, every instant of relief. Broken and numbed hearts can and will feel again. The pain may always be there, but there is solace. There will be peace.
These angelic animals have been on loan from Lutheran Church Charities in Addison, Illinois to the community of Newtown since Sunday. The organization that trains and provides these gentle pets started in 2008 when the dogs comforted those at Northern Illinois University after five students were killed by a gunman. It began with a handful of dogs and now includes 60 dogs in six states, according to the Chicago newspaper.
One line in the article stuck out to me: "Some children smiled for the first time in days as they pet the therapy dogs..."
I think about children . . . ages 5 through 10 . . . and how sad it is to imagine any child going four days . . . even four hours . . . without smiling. I know that these children are not the only sad children in the world. I know that there are children everywhere . . . everywhere . . . who are sad and smileless. The thought breaks my heart.
And I think about those soft and warm dogs, sitting patiently and contentedly while little hands reach out, tentatively at first, to stroke the silky fur or rub a velvet ear, edging closer and closer until a little arm reaches around a warm neck and a tender cheek feels that soft, plush coat and fear and worry and guilt and anxiety give way as eyes close and something that feels a little like peace creeps closer with every rise and fall of that wagging tale. Is there anything more reassuring than the steady thump-thump of a happy dog's tale on the floor? Well, aside from the deep throated purr of a half-sleeping cat, I mean?
And I know, in a tiny, removed way, a little bit about the numbness inside those children that has kept the smiles away from their faces. Maybe we all do - that dull, sensationless ache that spreads like Novacaine through your heart and keeps you from feeling anything at all because that's safer somehow than feeling what it is that you really truly feel.
I hope I am not assuming too much; I can not imagine what these children and adults have experienced. What I can imagine - what I remember - is how I felt once, myself, and how it felt to smile again.
I've talked about Johnny's leukemia. Probably too much. The marvelous, miraculous and blissful end of that story is best told in the full-bellied laugh of my precious granddaughter. Still, there was a time when my tender twenty-five year old heart had steeled itself against fear and pain and worry. Just before the Christmas after Johnny's diagnosis, he was back in the hospital with pneumonia. It was awful. And terrifying. But it was what it was, and we did what we did, and life kept ticking forward like it does. And the restoration of my smile came through two men for whom I will always have a tender spot in my heart because they returned smiles to my emotional repertoire.
One evening Johnny and I were in the playroom at the hospital, reading books together. There was a Dr. Seuss book there that I had seen but never read, Fox in Socks. As my almost four-year-old and I read that book together, we started to giggle. When we got to the part about the Noodles and the Poodles and the Tweedles and the Beetles in the Bottle in the fuddled-up Puddle, the giggling became uncontrollable. We laughed and re-read Seuss's magical words over and over again as something familiar began to rise up in my heart.
About that same time, just before or just after, I was at home and watching the Disney Channel with one or both of the boys. This was back in the earliest days of the Disney Channel, before Hannah and the Witches and whatever other marketing nonsense is on there now. Back in the early 80's, the Disney Channel was mostly repeated showings of old Disney movies and cartoons with a very few new shows sprinkled in. That Christmas, The Happiest Millionaire was one of those old movies. I'm a sucker for musicals anyway, but a musical with dancing Irishmen, boxing teenaged girls, and alligators in a Philadelphia mansion was more than enough to get me to sit down and watch. There is a moment when John, the Irish butler, has been narrating to the camera, and Fred MacMurray's character, Mr. Biddle, asks him who he's talking to. As John brushes the question off, MacMurray turns and peers into the invisible eye of the camera with a dubious expression. I burst out laughing, and something wonderful erupted inside of me. In the weeks that followed, while Johnny convalesced and returned home in time to enjoy a beautiful and bountiful Christmas with us, I thought back over and over again . . . and have continued in the past nearly 30 years to think over and over again . . . of the joy and light that was brought into my heart by a silly poem and a silly moment in a silly movie; a joy that wasn't silly at all, but was as real as the air I breathed into my lungs.
So thank you, Dr. Seuss and Mr. MacMurray, and to the noble and gentle canines from Chicago, for every smile, every eased heart, every instant of relief. Broken and numbed hearts can and will feel again. The pain may always be there, but there is solace. There will be peace.
Great piece. Glad I followed the FB link to read it. One thing, though, for my old eyes, it is very hard to read white on red. "Just sayin'", as they say. ))
ReplyDeleteRemarkable. I do wish you'd write more often. :)
ReplyDeleteLinda, I have been trying to write about this and not succeeding and here you have given me this gift, this little gem. It resonates and clarifies and it is lovely. Beautiful piece.
ReplyDeleteRik -- I'll see what I can do.
ReplyDeleteDana -- My most faithful follower. I miss you!
Catherine -- *lays head on your shoulder* Sigh.