Woody was a mutt. Hard to believe: at barely 5 pounds at his "fattest", he was a tough little guy who traveled cross country and as far south as Key West with David and me.
Woody peed in more states than you could, er...wag a tail at.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Woody's Garden
****
There Must Be Gardens in Pet Heaven
I am at Lowe’s Garden Center, wrestling with a Bird of Paradise. I just want to find the price. This Mutha is huge.
Woody’s headstone arrived and I’ve decided to plant the biggest, most beautiful tropical plants I can find around it. Woody may have been small, but I just know he is huge now. After all, he is in everything I see.
Plus I need something to water and tend to every day or I am going to lose my mind. Rebecca is low maintenance; I love her, especially now as she shares my grief, but she’s an independent kinda gal, as most cats are.
The Bird of Paradise is ninety dollars, plus it won’t fit in my car, so I chose a smaller version called heliconia: same huge green leaves and smaller, but no less beautiful, orange flowers. I set the pot of Confederate Jasmine we brought with us from North Carolina next to his headstone, as sort of a connection to when he was alive. I also buy a yellow flowering shrub called Esperanza, which means “Hope” and a Kalanchoe plant with teeny white flowers on it, because they remind me of Woody. The last thing I buy is some kind of snake plant with brilliant red and orange and yellow-speckled leaves reaching up to the sky, much like the flowers and plants in my niece and nephew’s card.
I have finally changed my clothes. No laundry done yet, though. Change takes time.
I drive home in a stupor - again, change takes time – and I go to work.
To call me “crazy with grief” at this point is an understatement. Even though it is 90 degrees and sunny, I dig the holes for the plants and plant them in fifteen minutes flat, even adding soil conditioner to keep them healthy. Bugs are everywhere: attaching themselves to my arms and calves, flying up my nose, even sticking onto my contact lenses. Undaunted, I weed as I go, all while balancing on one foot so as not to disturb his gravesite. The finishing touch is a little wooden sign I made with a little drawing of Woody on a cloud on it that read, “Woody’s Garden.” No way I’m going to call this spot in my yard “Woody’s G-G-G-Gr-Grave.” Uh-uh, no way.
As I water the plants, I keep hoping I’ll see Woody peek out from behind one of the plants in his garden. Wacko.
Rebecca appears next to me and suddenly leaps over to the heliconia. She rubs past one. She sniffs Woody’s new headstone and plops down on it.
She closes her eyes as I pet her head.
I think of my niece and nephews’ card. “Angels and bugs….” I whisper.
*
There Must Be Gardens in Pet Heaven
I am at Lowe’s Garden Center, wrestling with a Bird of Paradise. I just want to find the price. This Mutha is huge.
Woody’s headstone arrived and I’ve decided to plant the biggest, most beautiful tropical plants I can find around it. Woody may have been small, but I just know he is huge now. After all, he is in everything I see.
Plus I need something to water and tend to every day or I am going to lose my mind. Rebecca is low maintenance; I love her, especially now as she shares my grief, but she’s an independent kinda gal, as most cats are.
The Bird of Paradise is ninety dollars, plus it won’t fit in my car, so I chose a smaller version called heliconia: same huge green leaves and smaller, but no less beautiful, orange flowers. I set the pot of Confederate Jasmine we brought with us from North Carolina next to his headstone, as sort of a connection to when he was alive. I also buy a yellow flowering shrub called Esperanza, which means “Hope” and a Kalanchoe plant with teeny white flowers on it, because they remind me of Woody. The last thing I buy is some kind of snake plant with brilliant red and orange and yellow-speckled leaves reaching up to the sky, much like the flowers and plants in my niece and nephew’s card.
I have finally changed my clothes. No laundry done yet, though. Change takes time.
I drive home in a stupor - again, change takes time – and I go to work.
To call me “crazy with grief” at this point is an understatement. Even though it is 90 degrees and sunny, I dig the holes for the plants and plant them in fifteen minutes flat, even adding soil conditioner to keep them healthy. Bugs are everywhere: attaching themselves to my arms and calves, flying up my nose, even sticking onto my contact lenses. Undaunted, I weed as I go, all while balancing on one foot so as not to disturb his gravesite. The finishing touch is a little wooden sign I made with a little drawing of Woody on a cloud on it that read, “Woody’s Garden.” No way I’m going to call this spot in my yard “Woody’s G-G-G-Gr-Grave.” Uh-uh, no way.
As I water the plants, I keep hoping I’ll see Woody peek out from behind one of the plants in his garden. Wacko.
Rebecca appears next to me and suddenly leaps over to the heliconia. She rubs past one. She sniffs Woody’s new headstone and plops down on it.
She closes her eyes as I pet her head.
I think of my niece and nephews’ card. “Angels and bugs….” I whisper.
*
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
BLACK FRIDAY
From Woody's Garden
An Illustrated Book for Pet Lovers of All Ages
www.xlibris.com/woodysgarden
(Not to be confused with this blog, Walks With Woody)
“ And, greatest gift of all,
Odin gave them souls that live and never die,
though the body itself has turned to dust.”
- ODIN’S FAMILY: MYTHS OF THE VIKINGS
Retold by Neil Philip
I wake up hearing panting. The excited, Spring fever kind of dog panting :Woody running full force around trees in our backyard in Michigan, years ago when he could do that. No matter how cold it was outside, he’d run circles on the grassy patches in between the snow until, exhausted, he’d sit, and one of us would scoop him up, and bring him inside to rest and lap up some water.
This is just too hard. Thinking about him is just too painful.
So I started thinking TO him instead….
I closed my eyes as quickly as they opened this morning in bed, and tried to clear my mind. Slowly, I pictured him, content, in the lap of Peace….
Me: I miss you.
I imagine he would cock his head to one side, trying to understand.
He is suddenly a beautiful man angel, like a Nordic god.
He: But I never left. And you still haven’t left me. We’re still together.
Me: True. You are in my thoughts, always. I guess what I mean is, I miss your little body.
I picture him shrugging and the thought comes quietly to me, as if he said it directly to my mind.
He: That body caused me a great deal of pain for a very long time. I’m glad to be free of it. I couldn’t run for a very long time.
And suddenly I realize what he is saying is true. His arthritis left him unable to run in years.
He looks at me and without words spoken, and I know: he hung on for a very long time, longer than he might have willingly. Maybe he would have “gone” after his first syncopatic episode – a surprise, too soon, to be sure. In his unconsciousness then, perhaps, he heard the desperation in my voice, felt my wildly trembling hands, and he knew he couldn’t leave me like that, so he pawed his way back to us. Away from the freedom from pain and those grassy fields of Heaven that he finally could run through again. Through another heart attack and several mini-strokes, he stayed with the old ticker as long as he could.
I don’t know if this is true. But…
I also don’t know that it is not.
*
I miss the physical likeness of Woody. I miss his smell (wheat toast) and the feel of his fur (boney angora). I miss the way his head popped up when I’d pass him in his little dog bed; I miss the way he would hold a wedge of rawhide and chew it with gusto; the way he’d smack when he would eat Pupperoni treats.
But if I believed in Spirit, had an ounce (or 3.3 pounds) of faith, I’d know, indeed, that he is in a “better place.” Without the burden of a sick body, he can run again, breathe again, and finally, finally be free.
Thinking of Woody always brings me full-face with those last few frail days, with all the guilt of having him put to sleep, but at the same time knowing that I would never expect David to let me suffer any longer than Woody did. I just don’t know.
*
Me: When are you coming Home?
He: I am Home.
Me: But – I don’t –
He: I’m already with you.
Me: Please. I miss you.
He: Check more. Inside. Around you. I never left.
Me: How can I be sure?
He: You don’t have to be.
Just know.
* *
On my morning walk this morning I heard a rustle of leaves and was rather pleasantly startled to look over and see a Mini Pinscher puppy poised and staring at me, head cocked mischievously to the right.
Oh, God, this is a busy street, I am thinking. “Where did you come from?” I ask him. He darted back, through a hole in the fence.
I walked on.
Rustle of grass. Mini pin, back again.
“C’mon. You can’t play on this busy street, Sweetie. You’ll get squished.”
I consider carrying him to a side street, where I can knock on a few doors, find his real home.
As if reading my mind, he leaps, fakes me out, and darts back into the hole again.
I walked on.
I keep looking back for him, again and again, just in case. But he’s gone.
He must know where his Home is, even though I don’t.
*
His eyes are half closed and he is half-turned, this stunning white-blonde man. The contentment on his face is something I have never known, and I feel guilty disturbing him from it, but –
He turns to me. Tears are streaming down my face but the grapefruit that’s been blocking my throat for the past two weeks has shrunk to the size of an apricot. He looks so lovely; he smiles the kindest smile I have ever seen in my entire life, with sparkling blue eyes the color of the South Florida sky.
Me: I still look for you when I get home and… it’s like being stabbed.
He: Mmm. Yes.
He hugs me with strong, smooth arms enveloped by cool, white sheet sleeves and I cry into them and worry about the mascara stains and I tell him, and he laughs a little and hugs me tighter – big, white, safe arms.
I cry and cry and laugh a little because suddenly I think of him as a puppy, biting my grandmother with tiny teeth and a tiny growl to match, and she giggled.
Me: I spoke to Nannie yesterday and she told me she had a dream about you. She said Jesus was sitting in a chair and He called to you and patted his lap, and you sprung right up, all white and fluffy. But your hair was curlier. Does Heaven curl your hair?
He: (smiling) Only the angels’.
Me: Really?
He shrugs.
Me: Anyway, even though her memory fails her a lot, she remembered that you had been born with a gimp front leg. But in her dream your leg was perfect and you were wagging a lot.
He: Yes. My legs are strong as trees now.
Me: I miss you.
He: I am here. I am here.
He hugs me tighter and…
… I wake up.
*
On my walking path this morning, a man I had never seen before smiled and said, “Hello,” and startled me out of my thoughts of Woody. I looked up to the “Hello” and it was the face of the man-angel in my dream. Except his hair was white, not golden blonde, and he wore a yarmulke.
I ring my sister Jen the minute I get home.
“Woody is a Rabbi living in Delray Beach!”
I tell her about my dream and the man I saw on my walk.
“Uh-huh,” she says, carefully.
“Really! What are the chances of seeing the same man the next day?“
“You haven’t been sleeping, have you?” she asks.
Bitch. Don’t pop my bubble.
“It was the eyes. The eyes were the same. Sky blue. They twinkled.”
“’kaaay,” she said.
*
2B3FJC23QWUX
XFGNRKKX9U23
An Illustrated Book for Pet Lovers of All Ages
www.xlibris.com/woodysgarden
(Not to be confused with this blog, Walks With Woody)
“ And, greatest gift of all,
Odin gave them souls that live and never die,
though the body itself has turned to dust.”
- ODIN’S FAMILY: MYTHS OF THE VIKINGS
Retold by Neil Philip
I wake up hearing panting. The excited, Spring fever kind of dog panting :Woody running full force around trees in our backyard in Michigan, years ago when he could do that. No matter how cold it was outside, he’d run circles on the grassy patches in between the snow until, exhausted, he’d sit, and one of us would scoop him up, and bring him inside to rest and lap up some water.
This is just too hard. Thinking about him is just too painful.
So I started thinking TO him instead….
I closed my eyes as quickly as they opened this morning in bed, and tried to clear my mind. Slowly, I pictured him, content, in the lap of Peace….
Me: I miss you.
I imagine he would cock his head to one side, trying to understand.
He is suddenly a beautiful man angel, like a Nordic god.
He: But I never left. And you still haven’t left me. We’re still together.
Me: True. You are in my thoughts, always. I guess what I mean is, I miss your little body.
I picture him shrugging and the thought comes quietly to me, as if he said it directly to my mind.
He: That body caused me a great deal of pain for a very long time. I’m glad to be free of it. I couldn’t run for a very long time.
And suddenly I realize what he is saying is true. His arthritis left him unable to run in years.
He looks at me and without words spoken, and I know: he hung on for a very long time, longer than he might have willingly. Maybe he would have “gone” after his first syncopatic episode – a surprise, too soon, to be sure. In his unconsciousness then, perhaps, he heard the desperation in my voice, felt my wildly trembling hands, and he knew he couldn’t leave me like that, so he pawed his way back to us. Away from the freedom from pain and those grassy fields of Heaven that he finally could run through again. Through another heart attack and several mini-strokes, he stayed with the old ticker as long as he could.
I don’t know if this is true. But…
I also don’t know that it is not.
*
I miss the physical likeness of Woody. I miss his smell (wheat toast) and the feel of his fur (boney angora). I miss the way his head popped up when I’d pass him in his little dog bed; I miss the way he would hold a wedge of rawhide and chew it with gusto; the way he’d smack when he would eat Pupperoni treats.
But if I believed in Spirit, had an ounce (or 3.3 pounds) of faith, I’d know, indeed, that he is in a “better place.” Without the burden of a sick body, he can run again, breathe again, and finally, finally be free.
Thinking of Woody always brings me full-face with those last few frail days, with all the guilt of having him put to sleep, but at the same time knowing that I would never expect David to let me suffer any longer than Woody did. I just don’t know.
*
Me: When are you coming Home?
He: I am Home.
Me: But – I don’t –
He: I’m already with you.
Me: Please. I miss you.
He: Check more. Inside. Around you. I never left.
Me: How can I be sure?
He: You don’t have to be.
Just know.
* *
On my morning walk this morning I heard a rustle of leaves and was rather pleasantly startled to look over and see a Mini Pinscher puppy poised and staring at me, head cocked mischievously to the right.
Oh, God, this is a busy street, I am thinking. “Where did you come from?” I ask him. He darted back, through a hole in the fence.
I walked on.
Rustle of grass. Mini pin, back again.
“C’mon. You can’t play on this busy street, Sweetie. You’ll get squished.”
I consider carrying him to a side street, where I can knock on a few doors, find his real home.
As if reading my mind, he leaps, fakes me out, and darts back into the hole again.
I walked on.
I keep looking back for him, again and again, just in case. But he’s gone.
He must know where his Home is, even though I don’t.
*
His eyes are half closed and he is half-turned, this stunning white-blonde man. The contentment on his face is something I have never known, and I feel guilty disturbing him from it, but –
He turns to me. Tears are streaming down my face but the grapefruit that’s been blocking my throat for the past two weeks has shrunk to the size of an apricot. He looks so lovely; he smiles the kindest smile I have ever seen in my entire life, with sparkling blue eyes the color of the South Florida sky.
Me: I still look for you when I get home and… it’s like being stabbed.
He: Mmm. Yes.
He hugs me with strong, smooth arms enveloped by cool, white sheet sleeves and I cry into them and worry about the mascara stains and I tell him, and he laughs a little and hugs me tighter – big, white, safe arms.
I cry and cry and laugh a little because suddenly I think of him as a puppy, biting my grandmother with tiny teeth and a tiny growl to match, and she giggled.
Me: I spoke to Nannie yesterday and she told me she had a dream about you. She said Jesus was sitting in a chair and He called to you and patted his lap, and you sprung right up, all white and fluffy. But your hair was curlier. Does Heaven curl your hair?
He: (smiling) Only the angels’.
Me: Really?
He shrugs.
Me: Anyway, even though her memory fails her a lot, she remembered that you had been born with a gimp front leg. But in her dream your leg was perfect and you were wagging a lot.
He: Yes. My legs are strong as trees now.
Me: I miss you.
He: I am here. I am here.
He hugs me tighter and…
… I wake up.
*
On my walking path this morning, a man I had never seen before smiled and said, “Hello,” and startled me out of my thoughts of Woody. I looked up to the “Hello” and it was the face of the man-angel in my dream. Except his hair was white, not golden blonde, and he wore a yarmulke.
I ring my sister Jen the minute I get home.
“Woody is a Rabbi living in Delray Beach!”
I tell her about my dream and the man I saw on my walk.
“Uh-huh,” she says, carefully.
“Really! What are the chances of seeing the same man the next day?“
“You haven’t been sleeping, have you?” she asks.
Bitch. Don’t pop my bubble.
“It was the eyes. The eyes were the same. Sky blue. They twinkled.”
“’kaaay,” she said.
*
2B3FJC23QWUX
XFGNRKKX9U23
Monday, November 9, 2009
PAWPRINTS IN SAWDUST
Throughout his life, Woody loved to walk through the sawdust aand wood shavings of my now husband, David. When I met David back in San Diego, he was sweeping the floors of construction sites. Since then - pretty much spanning Woody's life - he has won the Sir Waleter Raleigh award for historic renovation; built us a home converted from an old store; had news stories written about him and even been on TV.
Anywho, here's a photo of some of his wood work. if you want to see lots more, check out his blog:
Monday, October 26, 2009
WOODYS GARDEN READERS PET PORTRAITS
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