Guard Duty

My husband and son and I have a long history of taking in shelter dogs. These animals, seven so far, become part of our hearts and souls. They are treated like full members of our family. Leaving them for extended periods of time, or putting them in a kennel when we go out of town, or farming them out, is not an option. Since I am home most, I am the primary connection to these animal companions, although my husband and son share equally in the walking and grooming of the animals. In the past we have had to deal with a couple of neighbours who treated their dogs with wanton cruelty, and so we got the local Humane Society and even the Sheriff's Department involved in one particularly traumatic case that took over 3 years to document and have justice prevail for the abused and suffering dog next door. The suffering the animals endured right in our street, right across from our own fence, the loneliness and pain, left a deep impact on my heart. I fought like a lioness for the haphazard creatures. Nothing infuriates me more than suffering caused innocent creatures at the hands of cruel, heartless men and women. We include our dogs and cat Tigger in all aspects of our lives and the bond and love with these animals over the years is priceless and often very moving. Loneliness is one of the worst sufferings heartless humans inflict on their dogs that are supposed to be their companions that deserve respect, proper shelter, food, clean water, exercise and love. I have seen dogs in our own street deprived of all those basics. When my parents moved to Arizona in the early 1990's, one of my younger sisters got a job in Georgia, so did her husband. My youngest sister was living with my parents off and on, as she was already battling bi- polar depression. Somehow, my mother and sister in Georgia thought it would be a good idea if my parents and youngest sister moved to Georgia as well. That proved a big mistake, it did only further my sister's manic depression once she was in Georgia, as she ended up taking her own life within 3 years of having moved there. But in the time before moving to Georgia, my mother spent a lot of time there visiting my other sister and her husband. My father was left behind, for weeks at a time, at the house in Arizona, which was very beautiful, but isolated, leaving my father very much alone. At the time, it felt wrong to me, and knowing what I know now about her motifs and contempt for her marriage, it only seems more despicable. I often think, you would not treat a dog the way she treated my father. He just put up with it, paid all the expenses, he was good enough for my mother for that. It seems monstrous to think how all those months she left him alone were only a prelude to how she would ultimately kick him out after 45 years of marriage and leave him to struggle with the tragedy of Alzheimer's on his own, while she kept the house, his money and belongings. He never said one bad word about her, and kept believing until his dying day, 7 years later in Oostende, Belgium, that she would take him back. She poisoned our hearts for him with superbly crafty emotional manipulation, something that left me nauseous and traumatized for many years. She hated him, told us so, and it was her deepest ambition to convince her children they should despise their father equally. I am not sure what made me think of my father, just sitting in that nice house in Arizona, while my mother was in Georgia. It was so easy to dupe him. She had made that into an art, and the same way she convinced my father he should move to Arizona for her, she convinced him to move to Georgia, with tragic results for him and my youngest sister. While my father was living with her in Arizona, it was like my mother had my father on guard duty. She would take off for Georgia and leave him alone, in case my youngest sister would need help. Those were lonely times for him. He was not invited to come along, because my mother was all too glad to get away from him any chance she had. She was all too glad too, to share her delight at being away from him with her children, which I always thought  was in bad taste. Meanwhile, our father sat alone, waiting, like a fool. Michael and I were on a very tight budget with a toddler son, all the way in Washington State, my brother was all the way in Texas with his wife and two small children, and my youngest sister was battling manic depression. It was a messed up and frustrating situation. It makes me sad to realize now, all those years later, how our mother manipulated him ,and her children, shamelessly. She caused him so much loneliness the last 18 years of his life. By the time I realized what she was doing, it was too late to let him know I finally understood, as he was already deep in the clutches of dementia and no longer remembered who I was. I think of him alone in Arizona, alone in Georgia after she kicked him into a cheap apartment, alone at two different retirement communities in Belgium, where he would die in the second one, an Alzheimer center in Oostende. His three sisters in Belgium are the women who gave him dignity in all the anguish he endured the last 7 years he lived there. It was like he was a soldier sent out to be on guard duty on a lonely outpost by the whim of his commander, my mother. Only he was never allowed to go on break, he was never released from his lonely post. Very much like the lonely dogs I fought so hard for.  They at least got a reprieve. My father was not so lucky.