Rrrrrrroooombah

I’ve been thinking about getting another dog. My best bud, Brody, decided he’d rather hang out with Rob and Jesus instead of me last year, and now when I drive through Starbucks they won’t give me a pup cup full of whipped cream anymore. I can’t figure that out. I always gave them to Brody. Honest. Usually. Whatever.

So far I’ve owned three dogs, pound puppies we got from the same maximum-security joint. The first one, a rowdy little redhead we misnamed “Harmony,” was on death row when Rob and I rescued her. The second, another female, had eyes like Cleopatra and a fear of enclosed places, such as dog crates, SUVs, and fenced yards. Though we called her Sydney (under the delusion that she was part Australian Shepherd), a better name would have been Houdini.

Brody was a charmer, our first male dog, who we won in a lottery at the same Big House where his adopted sisters had once been incarcerated as well. Rob always had the magic touch when it came to contests or raffles, and six other families went home with broken hearts the day we took Brody home with us. He was the biggest dog we ever owned, and though, as a yellow lab/shepherd mix, he was exactly the dog I always dreamed of, he was a lot more dog than I could handle. He was my Christmas present that year, but by then I had no illusions about how things would shake out. From the get-go, he was Rob’s dog just like the other two were. So, I understood when he chose to join Rob in heaven rather than stay with boring old me, but I still miss him.

Now that I live alone without husband or puppy underfoot, my feet are lonely, just like the rest of me. My grandkids have been telling me for months that what I need is a sweet little lapdog to keep me company. Nothing too big. Definitely nothing that sounds yappy. Furry but not prone to much shedding. Old enough not to chew up my new furniture, young enough not to die too soon. The perfect pet. That’s what I need. I don’t think they make those.

Still, if I could find myself a slug dog that doesn’t need to be walked every day, I’d be open to the idea. This may be harder than I think.

They say it takes about a year for an animal to settle into the groove when you bring him home, and in my experience that sounds about right. It took Harmony a year just to remember her name. Sydney never did learn that there’s no place like home and was forever searching for Oz. Brody was a puppy to the very end. All of them needed more attention than I gave them. All of them drove us crazy. All of them were irreplaceable. It’s just that the last time we had a dog, Rob and I both were here to teach them to behave like decent human beings. Now there’s just me.

I don’t think I’m qualified.

I got to thinking about options and how to ease myself into the possibility of owning another pet, beginning with the problem of excess dog hair everywhere. I hate it because I hate to vacuum. I also hate doing laundry. And bathrooms. And dusting. All the things. But especially vacuuming. I thought if I got a little help with floor maintenance, keeping up with doggie debris might not be as hard as it used to be.

So, I bought a Roomba. They should have named it Rum-ba. The thing behaves like it’s drunk. It’s a rotund little robotic floor sucker that roams around the house in circles, bouncing off the furniture, and randomly snorting dirt and lint and crumbs up off the floor like the tasty morsels they are. I read the fine print, all the reviews, studied the stars—there were 4.5—and settled on a mid-range version that people raved about because it is especially good at picking up dog hair. Which I don’t have. Yet.

There was only one problem. All but two of the reviews were written in Spanish because this model, for some unexplained reason, sells best south of the border. And that explains why, when my Rrrrrrroooombah (it’s important to roll the R’s) chokes on the floor-length drapes in my living room and comes to a complete stop awaiting my rescue, I don’t always know it’s in trouble even though it’s yelling at me from across the house.

Because I don’t speak Spanish.

Perhaps I missed some of the finer fine print when I did my research.

I also don’t know how to re-program my sucky robot so it can yell for help in a language in which I am fluent. Like English. Or pig latin. Possibly even a smidgeon of French. The only word I have recognized so far is por favor, and that doesn’t begin to describe for me the kind of trouble Rrrrrroooombah has gotten into once I recognize the phrase.

So far, it’s tried to eat five of my drapes. Has vanished without telling me where to look for it. Overeaten all my rug’s fibers until it winds up with conditions I can only describe as both a carbohydrate coma and an intestinal blockage. Frequently, it disappears beneath the living room sofa and turns itself off, refusing to come out even if I say pretty pretty por favor. Yesterday it went after a used Kleenex, and by the time I figured out why the floor was covered in white confetti, its brushes were clogged up like the 202 at rush hour.

And here’s another thing—it’s kind of noisy for being so small. To compensate for that I’ve been running it in one room while I’m somewhere else trying to ignore it. But this house isn’t very big which means I’m not that hard to find, so that little tyrant keeps tracking me down. The only time I go looking for Roomba is when it chokes on too much lint or can’t swallow the curtains. Then all I can hear is an explosion of what I assume are Spanish expletives followed by piercing silence. That really chaps my hide. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s passive aggressive appliances.

If any of that happens while it slips out of view, I have no idea where it may be hiding. It won’t come when I call. It won’t even give me a beep to let me know whether I’m hot or cold. It just sits there, pouting, until I find it and apologize for making it wait.

I don’t know. This is all beginning to feel very familiar. Either I’ve purchased a cranky Mexican housekeeper or I’m in a relationship with a narcissistic automaton. Now all I need is to introduce Roomba to some barking little shitzu and let the games begin.

It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing that any time soon. In the quieter moments when Roomba is just running around bumping into my dining room chairs, the steady hum and clunking make me feel like I already have a pet, only cheaper. This one doesn’t require rabies shots or Purina Robot Chow.

I just need to put a collar on it that glows in the dark so when it finally stops yelling at me and shuts down, I can find it. Or not. 

With gratitude to Marci Maleski for permission to use her perfect photo of both her roomba and her annoyed dog. The original photo can be viewed by following this link: Ambivalence | Beau is not too sure about my choice in applia… | Flickr

732

Seven Hundred Thirty-Two. It doesn’t sound as long as it feels. Two years and two days since Rob left us. Two years and three since I last saw him. It might as well be a thousand. Before we know it, it will be.

The first year was an empty slate of disbelief. There are so many ways people describe the first three hundred sixty-five days after loss. They use words like numbness. Shock. Depression. Fear. Anxiety. Paralysis. I have felt all of those things, but most of the time I simply couldn’t believe what happened. Coupled with the extreme amount of stress I was shouldering, I suddenly couldn’t remember anything about our lifetime together. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why my brain wasn’t working. Was I to spend the rest of my life living without Rob while simultaneously robbed of our memories together?

There is so much opportunity for fear.

Each morning when I woke up, with the first ray of sunlight that hit my face, realization dawned with it. And I began to cry. Every morning. Every night I fell into bed exhausted and alone, and cried myself to sleep. I still do. In the hours in between, I counted the minutes and reminded myself to breathe. One breath in front of the other, I signed papers and made important decisions that most people have the luxury of postponing for at least a year, while I tried not to think about how normal life seemed only twelve months earlier.

I learned about the unique experiences grief affords, like, “All the firsts.” The first Easter without him. Then my birthday. Soon, his birthday and our forty-fifth anniversary. Followed by the first of thousands of questions—was I supposed to say we were married forty-four years or, since I’m still his wife, can I count the forty-fifth and forty-sixth as they arrive? Is there a book somewhere with all the rules laid out? How long is it appropriate to feel sad? Does my best source of advice on that one come from people who have yet to experience firsts?

The first Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went, precursors to the worst first of all, the first anniversary of Rob’s death. I hate to even write those two words together. Determined to soften the blow, I loaded up the Tahoe I had to buy on my own and drove as far away from my sorrow as I could go. Hilarious. I forgot the universal rule about suffering of any kind—wherever you go, you take yourself with you.

Finally, on the three hundred sixty-sixth day, I began to breathe without needing to remind myself to do it. I’d made it through all the firsts. This was really something. Maybe I was stronger than I seemed and braver than I believed. Or maybe I just had no other choice. When you’re a new member of the Widow’s Club, survival is worth celebrating even though throwing a party would seem super awkward. But let’s say you do it anyway. You eat a cupcake, toast to your success, and when the last bit of confetti falls to the floor, a shocking thought occurs to you.

That calendar of firsts is perpetual. Now you get to go through it all over again. Welcome to Year Two.

Year Two arrives with experience. By now, I had fifty-two counseling sessions under my belt. Lots of guidance and regular reminders to be kind to myself, show myself compassion, make space for the pain when it demanded my attention. And breathe. What is missing in Year Two is any sense of numbness. Now as I looked to my second birthday without Rob, the second anniversary on my own, the second Christmas holiday season, and the second anniversary of his death, I did it with all my senses (nearly) fully intact. It was as if the anesthesia had worn off. Picture dental surgery without novocaine.

The good news is, my memory returned. The bad news is, memories are not as comforting as Hallmark thinks they are. They remind me of all that I had and will never have again.

Two days ago was the second anniversary of the day we lost Rob. Or the day he went to be with Jesus. Or the day he died. Mostly, it’s the date when we said goodbye. The date I pushed as far from my mind as possible for forty-four years. The date over which I had no control. The date that ruins the word “date” for me.

I did my best to get through it, as did the rest of my family. We held onto each other just like we have for the last two years. We got together by Zoom two nights ago and toasted Rob with his favorite Scotch whiskey from the McLeod homeland, Scotland’s Isle of Skye. The same whiskey with which he lifted a glass to his children on their wedding days, and each of his six grandchildren on the day they arrived on earth. It was a sacred toast filled with deep love and respect for our hero. He was, after all, and always will be, the finest man each of us have ever known.

This year I did not run away from February 19. I watched it coming for five slow weeks, the same amount of time it took two years ago for Rob and me to be hospitalized, separated from one another, and eventually separated for all time. I know this is a hard read. Believe me, I’m trying to find some hope here while I journal the journey. Hope is always a good idea when your world has imploded. It’s there somewhere, even if it seems hidden among all the debris.

My heart aches for him. The questions are difficult, and answers don’t come easily. Some will never come at all. Such is the stuff of faith. And trust. Which I’m not really that good at. And on top of it all, yesterday was the first day of the Third Year, not entirely unlike the Second. What these two years both have in common is the realization that we have lost Rob and this loss is permanent. Acceptance may be one of the feelings identified in the so-called ‘stages of grief,’ but it is just as transient as the rest of the stages.

I’m talking to God again, have I mentioned that? I missed him almost as much as I miss Rob. It’s a strange thing in loss to know that God had Rob’s best interests at heart when He released him from his broken body and set him free to really live, with Him, while at the same time God was holding me and my family in His arms, too. Rob’s best day was the beginning of my worst. But somehow there is also the recognition that God is good. And that He feels every tear I shed. 

Seven hundred thirty-two. You have no idea how many boxes of Kleenex that represents. On the up side, I’m seven hundred thirty-two days closer to seeing Rob again. And in between all those firsts and seconds and thirds, hiding somewhere in the confusion, I believe there is hope.