Mego's Tribute

My trainer called to tell me I was going to get a black Labrador guide dog.  “I don’t especially like black dogs,” I thought, but had sense enough not to say.  On Friday of Memorial Day weekend 2002, the trainer, Kathryn, delivered nineteen-month-old Mesaad (pronounced meh-sod) to my door.  He had been born in Florida and was raised by a fourteen-year-old as part of a 4H project.  My now retired eleven-year-old Golden Retriever, Holly, was spending the next two weeks with my friend Margaret so Mesaad and I could get acquainted.

“You don’t look like a Mesaad to me,” I told the new black dog.  “The first thing I am going to do when the trainer leaves is change your name.” And I did.  (We will call him his real name, Mego (pronounced mee-go) from now on. 

Probably if somebody had told Mego he was fixing to get a fifty-something-year-old owner he might have thought, “I really don’t especially like older women.” 

So we spent our first weekend together.  We didn’t fall into instant love like sometimes happens with dogs, but we decided to see what happened. 

What happened was that on the very first day we were to go to work, I held his harness in my hand, stood a second, then put my left foot out and said, “Forward.”  He stood his ground.  I tried again, no movement.  After three tries the trainer said, “Pop the leash.”

“What?” I thought.  “He doesn’t like me and now you want me to correct him?”

“Pop the leash,” the trainer corrected me.

I did as instructed and Mego started walking as if he was going to the vet. 

It took almost the entire two weeks of training to get him to walk at a nice pace, do what he was told, and at least pretend to like it.  Then Kathryn left us.

Mego seemed to perk up when Holly came home, and I knew at least he had a friend to love as we got used to each other.  Every day we went walking and walking and walking.  Mego did everything I told him to do perfectly, yet something was wrong, and it wasn't with the dog.

One morning I took Mego outside and in the bright sunlight I looked into his eyes as closely as I could and believed I saw something in there, something sad, and it broke my heart.  I felt tears in my own eyes as I realized I had expected him to be just like Holly.  “You can’t help it that you are not Holly,” I told him.  You don’t have to be.  You just be Mego and we will just see all the things Mego can do.”

Some of the things Mego could do: 

Clear a bed in one leap as he chased my grandchildren through the house or hotel room;

Make Polly Pockets disappear;

 Open a loaf of bread with a single claw in a straight line from top to bottom,

Eat all the bread almost as quickly as I could get from one room over to stop him;

Dance on his hind legs when I told him to do the Mego dance;

Unzip a suitcase and pull out his food, or find any other dog’s food anywhere;

Understand and jump up because church was over when the pastor said “Amen”;

Part the waters of over a thousand souls and get me out of church so quickly I didn’t have to speak to anybody—whether I wanted to or not;

 Shred a rope toy and swallow the shreds until he had to have surgery;

Open any door just slightly opened, or push it open if it was going his way;

Open every trashcan I owned, until I bought all of them to work with a pedal;

Find my purse no matter where I might have put it down;

And put up his ears when I said the word “Listen.”

Mego and I grew closer than Forest Gump’s and Jenny’s peas and carrots.  It never occurred to me to second guess him when we walked.  Once we were at a shopping area and I was lost in the large circular space in the middle.  Streets, cars, stores, sidewalks, and people were in all directions.  Literally I found myself going in circles.  Finally, in desperation I said to Mego “Just FIND something!”  I knew if we got to any store in that area I would have an idea where we were and could get anywhere else.  He definitely took me to find something…  PetSmart.

I taught him places in the gym, such as “weights” for the resistance training, “tread” for the treadmill, and “my machine” for the elliptical.  I would go down the weight machines making comments at each one.  There is one in which you raise your hands up over your head lifting the bar, which is the hardest for me to do.  Several times I called it a “nasty machine.”   One day we went to the gym and everything was changed around.  I was surprised when Mego could still find the treadmill and the resistance training area, although the machines were not in the same order.  “I wonder what they did with that nasty machine,” I said almost under my breath.  Mego started pulling me as though I needed to hurry and get out of the way of something.  He stopped at the machine with the heavy bar to lift up.  He was named “Super Dog” at the gym and often at other places by people who watched him work.

When he was two or three-years-old he went with my son’s family and me to Disney World.  He sported a pair of Mickey Mouse ears all through the park and never complained.  He rode with me through the haunted House, and sat in the front row of Indiana Jones, never fearing when the explosions and heat seemed to be very real.

As Holly grew weaker, Mego could often be found lying beside her, washing her face and cleaning her feet.  After she left us, he always did a little crooked step every time we passed a Golden Retriever on our walks.

He rode on the floor at the bulk head of the jet when we flew to New Mexico, leading me to and through the terminals as though he might be the pilot.  On vacation once, he knew where his water and food were and he could find our room from anywhere.

One Christmas he wore a Santa Claus suit for the children at church.  Another Christmas he wore angel wings and laid at my feet as I sang in the Christmas cantata.  Every Christmas he waited for the family to leave and then stood at the closet door where he knew Santa had put his Christmas gift.  Before gifts were placed around the tree, his place to sleep was on top of the tree skirt. 

More than anybody Mego loved me, but he also loved Dr. Berry, the vet who took the rope and other things out of his tummy.  He loved all my friends and knew which ones he could count on for a stolen bite when we went out.  He loved all my family and especially my mom, who I could never get to stop feeding him fries. He was always ready to jump up quickly when he knew we were going somewhere, or even if he just thought I was about to move to get up.  Although he loved people, he always acted like he was just with ME when entering anywhere, never trying to steal the show, yet it always happened anyway.

If I watched TV he laid on the hearth in the summer time or against the couch in winter, just so he was close by.  When I worked he laid against the side of my computer desk.  At night he slept on the foot of my bed for over ten years, until arthritis set in and he could not jump up anymore.  We had to stop taking long walks then, but I always took him when I went with someone in a car.  Finally people noticed his limping and told me I was being mean to my dog.  Dr. Berry recommended a medication to try, and that medication gave us two more years of limited walks together.  I had put in for a new dog so he could retire and rest when he was twelve, but I worried because I knew he would never be happy being retired.  He was fourteen on October 19, 2013.  He was beginning to have a lot of stomach issues.  In December this got much worse and Dr. Berry and I did all we could so he could enjoy Christmas.  He fell right into the season, claiming the Christmas tree skirt for his favorite resting place, and going to Lexington to see Mom on the 31^st.  I found out that I would be getting a new guidedog on January 4, 2014.

Vivi came into Mego’s and my lives on January 4, 2014, about 2 PM.  It was a Saturday.  Mego had not done the Mego dance in months, but he did it then.  Vivi is as white as Mego was black and they did seem to fall into instant love.  However, in just a day or two after her arrival Mego began being sicker than ever with his stomach.  Ironically, Vivi began vomiting.  On the night of Tuesday January 7, Mego became so horribly sick I had to get him back to the vet first thing Wednesday morning.  Vivi’s trainer was in town and I was supposed to be training with the new dog.  I had watched Mego lie beside Vivi’s kennel every time she was put in there and wondered just what kind of conversations dogs might be able to share. 

To make the story less painful than it was, just let me say that Mego had a large tumor on his spleen and on Thursday I went with him to the vet for the final time.  I felt like a traitor, a murderer, and most of all heart-sick and grief stricken.  My trainer realized this and went to work with other people while I tried to heal.  Tears still fall as I visit the time.  If Mego were lying beside my computer desk right now he would come over and lay his beautiful black head on my lap to let me know everything is all right.

…

Vivi comes over from lying beside my computer desk, licks my leg from ankle to knee, arm from elbow to hand, then turns around and gets a toy to put in my lap.  You may not believe it, but the toy she chooses is the last one I gave Mego, his Santa Claus from last Christmas.

Mego smiles down at me from his picture.  His ears are up, his eyes are shining, and he and I do the Mego dance in my heart.   

…

“And we’ll fly across the mountains past the skies to Heaven’s doors;

Only God can find a way to make a heart as beautiful as yours.”

(From Holly’s, and now Mego’s, guide dog  song Find the Way).

Where Do You Go

When your mind wanders through paths and finds no flowers, where do you go?

When one baby step feels like climbing a tower, where do you go?

How can you pick up the words that you said,

The unkind things that live in your head,

That keep you from peaceful sleep in your bed;

Where do you go.

When every hour is just seconds counting, where do you go?

When the little things to do in one day seem like mountains, where do you go?

And all the words you can’t replace

Are only thoughts to take up space

That cannot find a hiding place,

Where do you go?

Go to a place like a little child where everything was real.

Ask God to come and meet you there, and then believe He will.

Even if your place was sad, He doesn’t mind the rain,

He will stay through all the time until you smile again.

When your mind dances through woods of raindrops, where do you go?

When you reach the summit of towers of rocks,   where do you go?

When people don’t understand who you are,

How did you ever come so far,

You look like an ant but you shine like a star,

Where do you go?

When the colors of flowers light up your life, where do you go?

When the simplest of words make the song seem so right, where do you go?

When people tell you that you are naive,

Just because you do believe

That every day should be  Christmas eve,

Where do you go?

Go to that place like a little child where Jesus shines His light,

Sing a simple song of praise that burns throughout the night.

Be a troubadour of life that all will want to know

How can they be just like you; tell them where to go.

Higher Learning

Higher Learning It was in my mid thirties when I got the bright idea of taking a few college courses to help jump/start my creative writing passion. Somehow I found myself taking things like algebra/trig, philosophy and sociology, to name a few courses. If it had not been for my fifth-grade son, a nice neighbor down the street, and a campus tutor, I would still be in algebra today. One semester I signed up for gym and asked a fellow student where the gym was. She gave me the generalized details and then said the usual “You can’t miss it.” “Want to bet?” I thought,” after roaming around campus for an hour. My sociology class, which I took because surely it would be easy, wasn’t. Back in the day there were no I pads or other tablets to make things a little easier to manipulate test booklets, so my professors gave my tests to me orally. This could be highly embarrassing when I did not know the answers. After my first midterm papers were handed out I turned around to the girl next to me and asked her what was the grade on my paper. She hesitated and almost whispered to me that it was a D. Next in that class we all went to the library to watch a classic movie which we were to be tested on afterward. The professor forgot the entire movie was in French with English captions. Another D. How was I going to pull a passing grade out of this class? Those of you who have taken a class in sociology may know of a time when you were given the assignment to do some deviant behavior. Most people in the class did things like trying to give away homemade cookies on the mall, or going into a fancy down town church with jeans on. Probably today people would be much more skeptical of a free cookie and jeans in a church might do nothing more than cause a frown to appear on the usher’s stiff face. I tried to talk my professor out of this assignment, assuring him that unintentionally I seem to do deviant things all the time, such as wearing one red and one black shoe shopping. He promised me an A if I could think of something extremely different to do. The largest and closest mall to me at that time was Crabtree Valley. I shopped there often, so often in fact that I knew it backward and forward. So, one day Kevin, Christi and I went to Crabtree. They were probably eight and eleven years old at the time, and could not believe their mom was going to walk down this mall backward. As I began my deviant walk they crossed the mall to the other side so no one could tell they ever knew me. Evidently people parted behind me to let me go smoothly on by and I heard some comments about the crazy woman walking backward. Over half-way through just as I got to the door of Footlocker, three boys jumped out and said: “Boo!” To be sure I got the A I walked down both sides of the mall backward so I could look across and see where I had just been. When I went to that other side Kevin and Christi changed too. Finally it was done and I was already thinking about how to write the paper as I phoned for a taxi. We all went outside Hudson Belk to wait. My head was spinning as I couldn’t get thoughts of that walk out of it, just as the cab pulled up. The children jumped in and I sat down. Once upon a time the Yellow Cab company had a few cabs with an extra large space in the back where you could put a very large parcel. This time the large parcel was me, as I finally realized I was sitting on the floor. We all started laughing, not only from my crazy walk, but because I sat on the floor until they told me to get in and sit down. This little incident was carefully written into my descriptive sociology paper as I had told the professor I did deviant behaviors all the time. And, yes, I got an A on the course.

Smile "Lines"

Grandma-Me series

SMILE “LINES”

Where is the rooster on my coffee cup?

He used to be red with touches of yellow and plumes of feathers painted alive by a famous artist.

His large bright eye watched me as I ate.

Sometimes my finger traced the feathers on the top of his head as my mind looked somewhere else.

He must have flown away then;

And he took my conditioner with him.

Where is the soft glimmering untangled hair I used to wash?

It would wave and rise like a halo around my shoulders.

Now it tangles like the words I cannot remember, that will be back when I least expect them,

Reminding me of yesterday’s song.

Where have my dancing shoes gone?

They twirled and skipped and ran like the wind;

They never stumbled on the steps of my dreams.

They are probably spinning through spider webs or hiding behind folds.

“Grow old gracefully,” you say

From under the plastic surgeon’s blade.

Instead I close my eyes and see

That daunting rooster laugh at me.

Wearing a halo of words on his head

All of thoughts I have not said.

  I laugh too as I pick them all up

And put them back in my coffee cup

My Own True Loves

From what I understand, this week is Service Dog’s Week.  Well, let me write about my service dog’s week so far. 

Sunday, Vivi did great going to church and great following Brittany into lunch.  Then we were leaving.  You know the drill, tables on both sides of an aisle and we were walking down the middle.  Just as we got to a crowded table with the waitress standing with her tablet poised in hand, Vivi spotted something that looked tasty on the floor.  Down went her pretty little white head and snap went her leash to the accompaniment of my louder than I meant to say, “NO!”  I could feel the waitress and everybody looking at us.  Vivi stopped following Brittany and walked slowly, dejected out of the restaurant.  I felt really bad and Vivi did all she knew to do to make me feel even worse.  Still she licked my face as I removed her harness once we were home, and was ready for another outing by Sunday evening.

Monday, after Vivi had done a great job at the gym, I decided to go walking at 1 PM, thinking this was a good time.  Also, I made the decision not to walk our usual route but to take one we had walked about four months ago.  In the winter when she came to live with me, we trained about this time of day and the streets were empty.  Our adventure on Monday began by a motor bike rider out having a joy ride in the middle of the day.  He was riding through yards and cutting across streets and sidewalks.  I could tell that Vivi was not comfortable when he rode up behind us on the street.  Then people were in their driveways with motors running.  Were they going to back out?  Two people yelled for us to go ahead and the last time we stood quite a while then made a mad dash for the next drive. 

Finally we were at a turn going toward Capital Boulevard, when a little car with a huge truck horn passed right beside us and blew that horn for all the noise it could produce.  People in the car laughed almost as loud as the music playing.  Vivi did not jump; I did.  The car got held up at the stoplight and we were headed that way.  I was praying it would be gone before we got there, as I was trying to think of something mean enough to say.  It was gone by the time I got to the corner but guess what?  There sat a huge truck right in the middle of the sidewalk.  I am not kidding.  I could not go around it on the left side because it was almost against the post and bushes.  The right side was too close to the street to pass except to go in the traffic.  Should I turn around and go all the way back home?  Vivi wanted to lead me around the traffic side of the truck but I was not having it.  Capital Blvd traffic is busier than I can write about, but believe me, it was noisy and louder than that truck horn.  Finally I screamed as loud as possible “Is there anybody here?”   Believe it or not, someone was and the very nice gentleman came to get me.  He must have had on a uniform as he promised that he would not let anybody hit us.  He told me they were working on the sidewalk.  Had the traffic not been so loud I may have told him about some more sidewalks they could work on.   Instead, I thanked him as I very much appreciated his help.  As we started on our way he complemented Vivi for knowing there was no way to go around the truck except walk close to the curb in Capital Blvd traffic.  I hope Vivi enjoyed that walk because for me a Valium would have been nice once getting home.

Tuesday, we both enjoyed a perfect two-mile morning walk as part of our usual route, before being treated to lunch by a friend.  I purposely threw a portion of biscuit in front of Vivi on our way out; she didn’t lunge for it.  I don’t know if she had grasped the concept, or if perhaps a biscuit was just not worth the trouble.

Wednesday, I decided to take her on a mini walk before the gym.  Yes, there was another car backing out of the driveway but also a friendly yell to go ahead.  However, loud garbage trucks or really any loud trucks can distract me, so after walking over two blocks a truck just managed to hit my last nerve. Vivi wouldn’t jump up on the curb as fast as I thought she should, causing me to step on her foot.  She yelled and I yelled back.  Actually she did not need to jump on the curb, I just thought maybe I did.  That time I really did turn around and head back home, where I kissed the top of Vivi’s foot and she washed my face with licks before going to Weight Watchers and the gym. 

Thursday, Vivi went on a nice early morning two-mile walk, out to lunch with two of my grandchildren and me at Olive Garden, to the Family Dollar Store, and to Goodberry’s ice cream. 

             

Now she is having a play date with her very best friend, Luna.

According to one of my earlier trainers, a two-year-old dog is entering his or her teens.  I do not know about statistics, but I will admit that both of my earlier guide dogs settled into a calmer place approaching age three.  Vivi is about half-way between two and three, and is far beyond average.  By the time she is three I am sure there will be no more food lunging, curb jumping, or yelling from a nervous owner.

Truly the value of a service dog like Vivi, Mego before her, and Holly is priceless.  I am absolutely positive I must have the best three dogs Southeastern Guide dogs ever to let leave their school.  What a gift!  I am going to try to be as good of a service dog owner as they are service dogs.  Sometimes I forget they are service dogs, because to me they are my own true loves.

www.guidedogs.org

Things that Talk

 

Just for your information, I would like to enlighten anyone who is not aware of just a few of the things made to talk for the blind.  In another blog I will list some of those things that are in Braille, of which you may be unaware.  This is just a little effort to help bring you into more understanding of the blind community. 

My little bungalow looks like most other houses, however, my cleaning lady would want to warn you about picking up just anything.  Often she has been totally surprised, almost to the point of screaming when she picks up something and it says “Hello,” or when she starts to clean an appliance that asks her a question.  There are many more talking things than just those in my house, but here are just a few.

My talking calculator is probably twenty years old, yet still works just fine, announcing every button one might need to push for a certain calculation. 

My outdoor/indoor thermometer is at least twenty years old and probably a new one would be nice as every time it gets to 32 degrees it announces it loudly for anybody in the house, five times and sometimes more.  It also announces 100 degree summer days, which it has not done this summer.

There is a blood pressure monitor which keeps me from having to run to the drug store for a BP check.  It also keeps dates and pressures in its memory bank as well as tells me if my BP is in totally acceptable range or how far off it is.

I don’t use my coffee pot anymore, but when I did I could tell it to set the time or set the time I wanted it to start brewing, as well as if I wanted to brew right away.  Many mornings probably my neighbors heard me shouting at it because either I could not speak the number “8” or “9” to its understanding.  I tried speaking with a British/English accent which was even worse.  Still, it was a very nice thing to have.  I now have a Keurig which does not talk, but doesn’t need to.

There are two clocks which speak, though one of them not as I would like.  It is an atomic British/English clock which does not recognize daylight savings time, causing me every six months to try to remember how to reset it manually.  I would gladly give this one to anyone going to England.  The other clock talks and doesn’t pretend to know when the time changes.  Either clock can be set to tell you the time every fifteen minutes, half hour or hour.  The latter clock also will tell me the room temperature.

When I ordered my talking microwave I had no idea that it would not have print on the buttons, sorry family.

My thermostat also talks.  It even came with CD instructions to tell me how to keep it from saying:  “It’s the recommended time to have your system checked,” every time I press the “tell me the room temperature” button.  Maybe before next spring I will find the CD and find the “help” button.

Every time my phone rings a loud voice announces the number and/or the name of the caller.  This is one of my favorite talking buddies, and is probably used more than most of the rest.

My phone base also talks enough that I can set the time, number of rings, and of course information necessary to use the answering machine.

Blind or physically handicapped persons can order books from the NC State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.  They also still have cassette book readers, but the digital player gives more options.  Not only can books be ordered on a cartridge with Brailled labels, but lots of us can download books from the library’s page called “Bard,” put them on a flash drive and plug it into the player.  Currently I have 21 books downloaded, ready to read.  The controls of the machine are also spoken as well as Brailled, things such as “volume up or down,” “play/pause,” etc. 

Of course the greatest talking thing is my computer.  Once in one of my college classes the professor wrote on my paper “your spelling keeps me up nights.”  I considered myself a good speller until spell check came into being.  I realized it was not necessarily my spelling, but type-O’s.  There are varieties of screen readers for the blind, and some of them do really well, yet there are always things the screen reader cannot do.  I became totally aware of this when medical transcription turned into medical editing.  The computers put on the screen what they think the doctors say, and the job is to listen and change anything the program misunderstood.  As of yet, the screen readers have not gotten quite technical enough to allow this to be done in a timely fashion, but perhaps as upgrades happen they will.  Still, I can write this blog, spell check it and put it on the web, as well as many other computer functions by myself.

There are things that can be bought such as color identifiers, currency identifiers, scanning machines, bar code readers, and more.

I don’t want to get into the I phone debate, but must admit that many of the things which used to cost a lot of money can now be downloaded as an app.  On my phone I have a color identifier, currency identifier, bar code reader, GPS designed specifically for the blind, camera that speaks what is in front of me, audio Bibles, and dictionary.  The clock has replaced both my others, and I can now download books from the library onto the phone.  I am sure the Android can also do these things, but it is a little harder to learn and I’m all about making life as easy as possible for myself.

Besides talking things, there are other things made to make life easier, such as kitchen helpers, more medical devices, recorders, some tools, magnifiers, note takers, etc.  So, if you should know a blind or partially sighted person, go on the web and have your browser look up such things they may need.  There are so many places to order I will not take the time to list them.

One amazing thing is that now almost any movie I attend can be audio described.  You may not think that as fast as some movies go that it would be possible to describe them, however, it can be, and is being done.  I pick up the little device in the lobby, carry it into the theater, put the ear phone or phones in, and once the movie begins I am made aware of all scenery and movements that happen without words.  

Life is good and getting better for those blind in today’s world, and I feel it is my job to let that world know.