Adieu to Mambo

My beloved chow-chow mix Mambo is unfortunately going to be put to sleep this afternoon. In approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes I will have driven him on his last car ride to our family veterinarian to have him sent off into the nether realm.

This decision is approximately two years in the making. Mambo was a juvenile when we adopted him. He was a mangy stray that was darting from behind trees and bushes and cars at my mother in laws house. We won him over with some food, found him to be very skittish, totally adorable, and I brought him home to the first house that I had bought with my husband. He was my first daughters first dog. We had him neutered and treated for severe intestinal parasites, and we just assumed with some basic dog training, socialization, that he would snap out of his funk.

You tend to block bad things out of your mind and live in denial. This is the guard dog that makes me feel safe in my own home. Hes chow chow and German Shepherd... so hes a big dog with a spotty tongue.. and a strange sense of gentleness, I can pull his tongue out of his mouth and tickle his mouth. I brush his teeth. No hassles... No problems. He sleeps next to my bed. When I go to the bathroom, Mambo goes with. When I go to sleep, Mambo goes to sleep.

I really believe it was the birth of my second daughter almost 3 years ago (April 2012 will be three year) that set him off where I just felt like I didnt trust him. I cant tell you what it was exactly. He did get left outside more (babies, toddler, waving their arms, pulling his ears, all of that spooked him... and especially being inside where doors, windows and linoleum are so scary to him),.. We mostly interacted with him on the deck. Or in the big fenced in back yard where he could have many exit routes. But cage him in inside, and he would get spooked, you could actually see the whites of his eyes.

If I carried the laundry baskets upstairs and changed my silhouette, this would spook him. On Saturday night I came home and I was wearing a green pea coat he hadnt seen and I went to let him in, it was about midnight, and I had the jacket unbuttoned. Its double breasted and it swung open on each side like big bat wings. This freaked him out but I was able to verbally coax him inside.

He has tried to go for (never successfully bitten) a couple children. The more we spoke about it and I reminisced with my six year old, the more names we added on to the list. First there was Logan. Then Travis. Then Garrett. Then Justin... Who happens to be a 30 year old man...Yesterday he attempted to bite a neighbours son, Thomas, on the back... Which started this whole process again. I called my husband almost in tears and said Mambo has to go. We cant have that liability on our hands and heads.  And then wow, today, this memory, about a year ago (cant remember)... My husband said "Mambo scratched him with his teeth by mistake"... It was supposed to be all of my husbands fault for spooking Mambo when he was sleeping....

I mean it just washes over you. The numerous excuses we have made for him because we love him. He has every right to be here, because he has faults should not be reason enough to have him put to his early death. But then the thing that keeps washing over me, I could never forgive myself if he hurt a child. Took out a childs eye. Scared a child (the boy yesterday was fine, he just shrugged it off, it was me who was a blubbering wreck on his mothers doorstep)...

I grew up with Rotties and Chows. My dad trained them. We had one that was a man-eater (bit people who should never have been on our property regularly), but we grew up in South Africa. You needed dogs like that for protection. Most people had big dogs. Boerbulls. Mastiffs. Chinese Racing Pigs (Bull Terriers). Staffordshire Terriers (Like the Amstaff Pit Bull Terriers). But it was more socially acceptable to have them there. You kinda assumed every dog was a flesh eating animal because they probably were. Because you NEED dogs like that there. But here, in our basic little wooden fence neighbourhood (very unlike the 8 foot solid concrete and brick walls we had in South Africa, topped with electric fencing and shards of glass standing upright in a concrete bed)... we only have the need for family dogs.

With more and more social interaction being dictated to by our childrens growing social needs, we have to protect their friends first. So we have decided to take irrevocable steps to make this a child friendly house. Sorry if you dont agree with our decisions. I only hope, that my own children are as safe in your house hold.

So my six year old thinks Mambo is going to be a guard dog on a farm.... And of course... When she broke down... I immediately offered her a replacement puppy... We will get another small one in the spring from the animal shelter. She said "Lilah will be so lonely"... and it just killed me. Cuz our Parsons Terrier will be so lonely.

Bon Voyage Mambo. I hope to see you again one day across the great blue.

Unto dust.

I just keep returning and ruminating on a constant thought. All the things we acquire, require, request, beat ourselves to death to buy, and to pay for, are all seemingly worthless in the grand scheme of things. The most beautiful Steinway concert grand piano turns to a worthless pile of firewood and rodent food (they like to nibble the felt off the dampers and hammers)... And what could have been a melodic instrument of great worth and an incredible sound, becomes an un-played hulking behemoth in a dusty old home somewhere.


It is the season to think of Jesus and to think of the reason why we celebrate Christmas. Yet even the Christians are obsessed with massive Christmas pressies...and what to buy... and what to give. You get caught up in the wanting to give for the sake of giving, because it is expected, and because kids get worked up so much for the event, who would ever want to disappoint a child. But the fact of the matter is it is all worthless.

A Christmas spent within the arms length of your family and the ones you love, meditating on this special Gift from God,  has far much more value, if not more, than the ones spent at the mall, haggling over shoes on sale, beating down the lady next to you, because YOU saw it first.

Take children, the more you give them, the sulkier and surlier they become. Yet the less you give them from a possession viewpoint, and the more you give them of yourself, of your time, of your attention, the more they understand they need SO LITTLE to survive.

I just get overwhelmed with Christmas. Because it seems like shopping-mass....And yes we all deserve a reward. Yes we all deserve to be happy and enjoy happy things with our families. But Jesus should always be at the center. His life should radiate out. And not get covered up by some fancy gift wrap and a sparkly bow.

So how do you guarantee that without being a nazi?

I just find the festivities so EMPTY without Him.

Every painted sky... It was His design.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-iJcn37L6U

Time to say goodbye.

So my friend that I wrote about in August (read Adult lamentations on the loss of a friend) gave me an even more clear and definitive answer on the status and importance of our friendship or lack thereof. She told me today, at approximately  (checks phone) 1:27pm, EST, Wednesday December 7th 2011, okay nix approximately, she told me at exactly 1:27pm today that she would prefer if I no longer called her.

So this shouldn't even be a blog entry. This shouldn't even have happened today. I should have got the memo, loud and clear, I should have listened to the words of wise friends who were looking out for me, I should have heeded advice. But instead I stuck my hand right into the viper pit. And now I am crushed. So absolutely upset that I have a raw and open wound. To think that I was just commenting to my sister about our superior skills at interpreting and deciphering people. I think honestly those superior ESP powers only work if you're not emotionally attached to the other parties in your dilemma.

So I have been pondering about myself. To have consciously sought out this kind of ridicule there has to be something fundamentally wrong with me, correct? Or maybe I am just an idealist. Like the first boy I ever loved accused me of being? Idealist or pig-headed and stubborn. I don't know. Dim witted is also ranking right high in my list of reasons tonight.

But with Ethel (pseudonym for my BFF, er EX BFF...sob)... I just can't get to that place of anger/grief where it sinks in. Its like I reach this plateau of disbelief where I can rationalize away anything that she says or does.
Essentially what happened in our friendship (or lack thereof) was one day I decided to speak frankly and candidly to her about things that I really felt were on my heart. And she rejected it, thought I was attacking her personally, and I felt at that time that I would far rather have her know the truth than to have her love me because I am agreeing with her. For like our whole relationship, I agreed. Then the one time I actually disagreed, it started this big ugly show down that ensues almost a year later.

Yet honestly, she was outspoken, brash, and critical of me for most of our relationship. And although her words hurt, I appreciated them. She is was like the sun shining in my sky. Shes the kind of friend who paints you a birthday card in oil paints, ahead of time so it is perfectly dry on the day you receive it. Or makes her parents a jumbo jet shaped chocolate cake for their return home from an overseas trip. Shes the kind of friend who sends you a post card from every new little town she visits, so you know you're always with her. Shes the kind of friend who is jealous and possessive. Only wants to spend time with you, and you have absolutely no idea why. And for the longest time she carried me and spoke for me, when I was voiceless and spineless.

After high school, we went our separate ways, had a falling out, our lives were so different. Then in 2005, I contacted her again, and she was skeptical, not exactly too welcoming of this intrusion into her life. I didn't realise the depth that I had hurt her from excluding her from my life then. But after a while she was calling me constantly, we spoke almost daily. About everything and anything and everyone. And it was like that old friendship, someone you knew as a girl, now a woman. Some things were still the same. But many things had changed.

And she had been unwell and had some struggles. And I grew weary and exhausted from constantly worrying about her and for her. Something tragic and major happened in September 2010 right after her 30th birthday, which preempted my sudden change in feelings, because I felt like I was going to lose her, into a casket, six feet under, with gerber daisies planted on top. The problem was, this wasn't the first time I had feared for her life. I was constantly in fear for her life. She was a shadow of who I expected her to be. And I wanted to fight (even fight her) to make her realise this.

So I did what I thought was best. I meddled in the works, as only a 'best friend' can know how. I did it from a self righteous view point, that "I knew best because I knew her best". But honestly that was my only protection from my feelings of dread and from knowing I could have sacrificed her trust in me, for her. I just always believed that she would somehow see, that I did this FOR her, not TO her.

Fast forward almost an entire spin on the earths axis. We are back into winter, as frigid as when I last had any interaction with her. Her entire life is different now, I believe. I don't really know. I can only surmise. As her first child, a son, was born yesterday. So I called her yesterday to congratulate her and to make sure she was okay. And I think that gave me hope or blind stupidity or the emotional fuel to dial her number again today. And today she ended it. So that is where it is.

I can't have regrets for what I have done.  I have done them. In my heart of hearts, I 100% believe I have done the right thing. I have said before my message was great, but the delivery sucked. But you can't fault me on trying. You can't fault me on intentions. You can't fault me on putting my neck on the line.

I told her yesterday that I loved her. I told her that twice on the phone. Whether she hears it and listens is her own problem.

And like I said in August, I have to try to move on. As nonsensical as it is to me, for what she means to me in my heart of hearts, I have to let her go because she wants it. Not because I want it for one second.