Progress? Accomplishment? Me?

It is a hard road from saying, "I did my best," to believing it and letting it rest. But I think, at least for this moment, I am there. For so long Tom has been going on tirades, telling me all of the ways I failed, and failed him. For a long time I looked at him and saw how terribly unhappy he was, not knowing he had bvFTD (Behavioral Variant Frontal Temporal Dementia), thinking he was either a jerk or depressed, and wondered why, when I had tried so hard, had put so much into this marriage and into him, he chose to be unhappy. Why, I wondered with great hurt, was he not happy and so terribly unhappy? When he accused and told me all of the things I had "said" and "did not do," and "did do" I literally screamed that was not the case, screaming to assert that I do exist, that I did try, and that I was good to him. When talking is not heard screaming is the only way to hold onto some small scrap of self. But I hate it. And I should not have to do it. My children tell me I was very good to Tom, that I still am, and that I have gone far, far beyond what many, or perhaps even most people would do; that I have put up with way more than necessary and more than many others would. And yet, I couldn't find it in myself to know that. There were angles and splinters of doubt, and thus the scream, the "NO, NOT ME, THAT IS NOT WHAT I DID OR DIDN'T." The scream of self preservation. But tonight, when he started his onslaught I said I could not do this. He persisted, he pursued. I kept saying, "We have talked about this; I am sorry you feel that way; I can't do this every day; I can't let you talk to me like this," and when I could say no more I went out and sat in the car. I sat for just a few minutes, and started inside. "I will leave," he said, shaking fingers and voice at me. Admonishing--my fault again. I stood in the light on the porch, watched him drive away, then walked inside and said, "I did my best." I did. And while I feel sad, I don't feel bad. I know I did my best. I know it. This is not about me. I know that too. Know. Know it. And feel at peace. For now  anyway. Sad, but at peace. And that is progress, an accomplishment. For me.
And I know I will save myself.

Measuring Life

Deaths, I would have told you, measured my life. Was it before C died, or around that time? Wasn't that the year R died? And indeed, deaths have punctuated my life like irregularly spaced holes in a belt. Friends, most of them, the first died when I was six and so was she. One for every decade. Good friends, five decades, five friends.

But yesterday, walking the dogs across a grey and cool fall field, I thought that perhaps it is in fact dogs that have measured my life, provided those intervals for memory, tick marks of passage. There have pretty much always been dogs, and they have always given comfort and do now. When needed most a dog will lie still and allow a tearwet face to bury itself in  her neck, will look worried and lick a face, and will allow a person to lie beside them, face to face, breathing the same air. They always know, dogs, they always know and they are always compassionate.

Silky, the lab pye dog we got in Calcutta (I arrived home from school to have a servant say, "Baba, mummy brought one e-small dog. Black." and I ran upstairs and running around the table was Silky, her curly tail wagging.) When my parents were unfair, or so I thought, I would take her to my room, "Come on, Silky," I would say, putting my arm around her and we would lie together on the bed, me feeling as if she were my only friend.

When my father died there was Kali, a daschund, the second, Lizette had joined Silky in our Calcutta house. Kali liked to have her head on the pillow, and she was small, but could sit in laps and lick faces in times of need. She was there for an extended period of need, and never failed those who sought her out for comfort.

Toto, a Chesapeake, was there when my friend R died. Not a characteristically demonstrative dog, she let me bury my face in her neck fur and cry all I could cry. Her compatriot, Chloe, was good for the same, and so they absorbed some of the pain of that loss until I could not stand to feel that pain any more.

And so now, as I feel so sad, so very sad, and as all of those past losses roll together like a slow wave with this newest and so very present loss three dogs are there for me. Wiggles with his worried face; his sweet brown eyes look into mine begging me not to feel so sad, and he licks my face, watching me all the time. One evening this summer I took him out to the pond to swim, but instead he ran around, kept getting back into the car and out again, coming over to lick my face as I cried by the edge of the water. Hot Scotch, the newer Chesapeake, lets me hug her and rub her back, and she twists and turns with infectious happiness, and gratefulness that she was rescued and she is loved. She then jumps up, her golden eyes looking into mine and runs off. Who could not feel better after that?

And then there is Georgey, the bull mastiff who acts like a toddler usually, but when tears are present he lies still beside me, and I put my arm over him, and he is warm, and his nose breathes onto my face, and we breathe together, and fall asleep, often sharing a blanket on the sofa, and we sleep, and we are at peace. He for giving it, me for receiving it.

And so, I see my life measured in dogs. Better dogs than deaths, most certainly, and such certainty brings them into the present, all those dogs, here and gone. And that is a happy thought: A life measured out in dogs. The dogs would want it so.

Tile Floors

Here: it is, my life. In shards and pieces and scraps. Some the size of two cupped palms, others atomic dust, scattered all across the horizonless floor. Look. The floor will change as you survey the wreckage.  It is the grey and white marble veranda floor in Calcutta, the beige kitchen tile in Belmont, my red Mexican tiles in Vermont, high gloss granite in O'Hare, the clear glass of an elevator...all the hard floors I have ever walked. Hard floors where things that fall shatter and scatter and splinter and turn to dust. Always the dust. And then comes the wind, or the sometimes someone who scoops up some of the pieces, places them on a blanket, gives them a toss and leaves them to fall back down in different places. So then I have to check and check again to see what is where, if what was intact still is. And that is exhausting.

There is no direction in this vertigious, ruined landscape. And so I am lost in a tale of what has gone before, but even that is subject to the faults of lone memory; memory as untrustworthy as thin ice covered by snow. What looks smooth and inviting will take you down and trap you and you will suffocate. All in an unnoticed instant.