by Jean Baur
Eyebrows shot up again. So I tried something. “Meow,” I said.
Nothing, so I tried it again.
“Meow,” she answered, sounding exactly like a cat.
Back and forth we went, having a great time, until Bella and Shelby started to bark.
“Whoops,” I said, “guess we fooled the dogs.”
Nancy laughed, happy that her mother was having fun. I had learned that Alice had not been an easy mother. She was a mother who even now lashed out. I was amazed by Nancy’s heart, that she could overlook the past, not ask much of the present, and week after week, take such good care of her mother. She did her nails, brought in flowers for her to arrange, made sure she was dressed with matching scarves and earrings, and monitored all her care. Nancy had become the mother she wished she had.
“I love you guys,” she told Bella and Shelby as we were leaving. And they loved her, not just because of the treats, but I’m sure because they knew how she felt about them. “Why don’t you doggies stay with me?” she asked, knowing she’d get a reaction out of Deb and me.
“No way!” Deb said, “this is my girl.” She had another dog, but she and Shelby were bonded in a special way, and no one would ever get between them.
Several months later when I visited the rehab facility without Deb and Shelby, I walked into Alice and Jackie’s room, smiling. I knew this would be the high point of the afternoon, but Alice took one look at me and shouted, “Damn you!” I recoiled as though I had been slapped in the face. Nancy looked like she was sinking through the floor.
“Oh, Alice,” I said, making light of her anger, but she glared at me. Today I was the enemy.
“Damn you to hell!”
I was stuck, frozen. There was pure hatred in her eyes.
“Mom!” said Nancy.
Alice ignored her.
“It’s just me, Alice,” I said, trying to get over the shock.
“You, you—you’re” and she rattled off a string of curses.
It’s just the disease, I told myself, looking away, moving across the room to Jackie’s bed.
After she’d given Bella a treat and I sat down on the edge of her bed, she told me, “Something isn’t right.”
I waited.
“Not right. Not working. My brain. It hurts.”
“Oh, Jackie,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t make it, it won’t, and I can’t, you know—”
Her voice trailed off and in her face was confusion, sorrow, anger, and despair.
I put my hand on her arm. Bella had curled up on her bed and was taking a quick nap. Nancy, who was one of the most compassionate people I had ever met, looked at Jackie with tears in her eyes.
“And the doctor, he won’t because of the other thing, so I’m still here.”
“Yes,” I said, “you are.”
Her hand stroked Bella’s smooth back, resting on her short fur, and I knew she was doing a better job than I was of comforting Jackie.
“I like this thing,” she said.
“Her harness?” I asked.
A nod, and I was thinking how terrifying it must be not to be able to find the words, the right words, for things. A few weeks later, we found out that her family had moved her to another facility because, after twenty years in this place, she had come to the end of her rope. She was done.
Bella and I visited her once in the new facility and she knew who we were, but without Nancy as well as Shelby and Deb, it wasn’t the same. It was sad, and even Bella’s presence couldn’t change that. The light had gone from her eyes.
Chapter 23
WHAT WE DO
Spring 2013
Stonington, Connecticut
It was difficult to explain to others what we did and why we had come to love the nursing home, or rehab facility, as it was called. It was easy to think of it as a dumping ground, a place to put Grandma, or Mom, or an older sibling when he or she could no longer be managed at home. It could be seen as the only alternative when a family member became ill and needed constant care. For some, it was a temporary solution after surgery, usually joint replacement, as it wasn’t safe to live alone until they recovered. I used to be afraid of these facilities and assumed that most residents were so out of it there was no point in trying to connect. When I had visited my aunt or a neighbor in a similar place, I dashed in, got to their rooms as quickly as I could, and got out. It was a gauntlet where the empty stares and nonsense words were dangers I had to outrun.
But being here week after week with Deb and the dogs changed that. It was finally spring and we had been coming here together for a year. We had a sense of ownership about this facility. It was ours—ours and the dogs. We knew everyone’s name (with the help of the name plaques outside each room). We knew the staff, we were familiar with the routines, and of course we knew who welcomed the dogs, who was stashing Cheerios, or crackers, or dog treats, and who would rather say a quick hello to the dogs than to us.
“Oh, look, here they are,” was what many residents said as we entered their rooms.
And Bella and Shelby, tails wagging, sashayed in, ambassadors of exuberance. They didn’t mind the awful smells, the sticky floors, or the garbled sounds that some of the residents made, or if they did, they didn’t show it. It didn’t matter to them that most patients couldn’t remember their names, or if they were sisters, or what breed they were. Their power was immediate. Dog equals joy. Dog brings life. Nothing beats dog.
Deb and I made an interesting mistake once. We called one woman Lois although her name was Jane. Neither of us knew how this started, but since Lois (really Jane) was deaf, she didn’t mind what we called her as long as the dogs were there. And she discovered that they loved Cheerios. She poured the cereal into a little ceramic basket that she kept on her bedside table and fed Cheerios to Bella and Shelby, letting her hand get slobbered, laughing the whole time.
We came to love the Cheery Cheerio Lady, as Deb called her, and the dogs did too. Her room was in the first hallway we went down, so we started our visits looking forward to seeing her. On good days, she waited in her wheelchair just outside her room with the ceramic basket in her hands. But one day in April, when spring was really here for good, Deb met me in the parking lot and told me she had died. Lois had died.
I had seen her the week before and she’d been agitated, lying in bed. I asked her, “Lois, can I get you anything?” and she had asked for a ginger ale. I told her I’d be right back and went to the refrigerator near the nurses’ station to get her a cold can of ginger ale and a straw.
“Thank you,” she said. “I sometimes feel very alone here. You are so kind.”
I sat on the edge of her bed, Bella watching me, and spent about five minutes with her. After I left, we passed the nurses’ station and I mentioned to Bonnie that she had seemed upset.
“She’s got an infection,” she told me, “but we’re taking care of it.”
I told Deb I didn’t want to walk past her room because it would seem so empty without her.
“I know,” said Deb. “But we’ve got to see her roommate. She likes the dogs, too.”
I nodded and followed her through the front door. As we turned into Lois’s room, the lights were off and it was hard to see. I assumed that Lois’s bed was empty so I looked to the far side of the room where her roommate was. But something moved in the empty bed and Deb screamed, “She’s alive!”
I stepped back as if hit by an electrical current. There was Lois, just waking up from a nap, smiling at us.
“Oh, my God!” I said.
“Not dead,” Deb whispered.
“Hi girls,” said Lois, really Jane. This was what she always said as she didn’t remember either our names or the dogs’.
“Oh, hi,” said Deb, stuttering. “Dogs are here.”
“Nice to see you,” I added, my eyes wide.
The dogs circled around her knees for the Cheerio-feeding routine. I couldn’t look at Deb because if I did, I’d lose it.
/> “How have you been?” I asked. “Better than last week?”
She nodded, interested in us, but obsessed with the dogs. They were her children.
After we said goodbye and were out in the hall, we collapsed with laughter.
“Your face!” I told Deb. “Oh, that was something.”
“Yeah, well, you looked as if you’d seen a ghost.”
And then more giggles, more gasping for air. In this place where death was everywhere, Lois had beaten the odds. The dogs looked at us and wondered why we’d stopped in the middle of the hallway. We carefully read the name plate and saw that this was indeed Jane, not Lois.
“She’s been resurrected,” said Deb.
“Oh, God,” I said. “This was better than Lazarus.”
When we got to Jan’s office, we asked her who died and it was indeed a woman named Lois, but our friend, our Cheery Cheerio Lady was Jane. Deb and I laughed every time we looked at each other. We barely held it together, and when we were out in the parking lot, we had tears streaming down our faces. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed like this. It made me feel as though I were ten years old, exploding with giggles.
When Deb got home, she sent an email to the minister of our church so that he knew we had witnessed a resurrection and that life everlasting was alive and well at the rehab facility.
My relationship with Beverly continued, and when we finally got one of those warm spring days where everything felt new and fresh, I asked an aide if I could take Beverly outside onto the terrace.
“As long as you stay with her and bring her back in, it’s fine.”
I had no idea if she’d like this, but I was hoping that fresh air and a little sunshine might seep through the gloom that surrounded her. I knelt down by her chair while Deb and Shelby visited other residents and told her that we were going to go outside. Nothing. I patted her arm and said I was glad to see her. More nothing.
I unlocked the brakes on her wheelchair and moved her very slowly to the door. Bella followed. I propped the door open with a brick and got her out into the dappled shade. I pulled up a chair beside her and waited. She sat there. Bella sniffed around and looked at me as if wondering what to do now.
“Feel the breeze?” I said to her.
A dull stare.
“Does your baby like it out here?”
She rocked the doll up and down.
“You’re such a good Mommy.”
I hummed a lullaby and was rewarded with a shy smile. A flicker.
Then I told myself to be quiet. To just be here. We watched as the wind made the tree branches sway and our hair lift and fall. Just like the doll. Up and down.
Hush.
Don’t worry, I am holding you tight and will never let you go.
Kat and I, plus Boo and Bella, were up on the fourth floor in the hospital in New London. I went into the first room while she chatted with a nurse at the desk. There was a frail, elderly man in bed, and his face lit up when he saw Bella. I asked him if he’d like Bella to put her paws up so that she could be closer to him, and he nodded and gave her a few treats.
After several minutes, I said, “Nice to meet you,” and left. Kat and Boo went into his room while I worked my way down the hall. I was almost done with this ward when I saw a young woman, lying in her bed, crying. My first thought was not to bother her, but her mother, who was sitting next to the bed, said, “Please come visit. We’d love to see the dog.”
“You sure?” I asked, and she nodded. “This is Bella.”
The young woman continued to cry, but I could see she was distracted by Bella.
“Would you like her to come up on the bed and lie down next to you?” I asked.
She nodded, and once Bella was in place, I watched her hand stroke Bella’s back and chest. Even her head.
She stopped crying and I told her that Bella was a therapy dog and that we came here every week.
Her mother said, “We just found out that she has a brain tumor—but it’s very small. They caught it early.”
“Oh, my,” I said.
“They’re going to dissolve it with chemo,” her mother told me.
I looked at this young woman and saw that Bella’s quiet, warm presence had taken the edge off her fear.
She looked up at me and said, “I just had a baby a week ago.”
I didn’t know what to say. This seemed like too much, so I simply asked, “Is the baby all right?”
“Yes, she’s fine,” and a tentative smile transformed her face wet from tears, eyes red and puffy.
The phone next to the bed rang and the mother answered it. She repeated the basic information she had told me and hung up.
“That was Aunt Josie,” she told her daughter. “She’s hysterical and wants to see you.”
“No,” said the daughter, her hand resting on Bella’s side.
The mother didn’t argue, and I thought that her family meant well, but what she needed right now was what Bella was giving her: nonverbal reassurance, comfort, and hope. No drama. I’d often thought of Bella as a bridge—a way for patients to get from here to there—but now I saw that she was more of a catalyst. She changed the chemistry, the essence of how they felt, because she was a dog, because she knew what to do, because she snuck under their defenses and touched their hearts.
Chapter 24
INVITATIONS
Late Spring 2013
Stonington, Connecticut
It was wonderful to be wanted. To be asked for. A young woman visiting her aunt at the rehab facility told us she worked for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and wanted to know if we’d consider visiting. Deb looked at me and we both nodded. Sure, why not? We were so confident in our dogs’ abilities that we rarely said no. We arranged a date and time, and Deb and I, who hadn’t quite yet been brave enough to carpool with the dogs, met in the parking lot of the foundation.
It was a hot, late spring day, and we gave the dogs time to stretch their legs and sniff the grass. As we entered the lobby, we saw a young woman strapped into a wheelchair, banging her head repeatedly against the head rest. Thump, thump, thump.
Bella looked up at me as if asking if this was okay.
“Hi,” said Deb. “Would you like to see the dogs?”
Thump, thump, thump.
“Bella, put your paws up.” I pointed to the tray attached to the wheelchair and Bella put her front paws up and gazed at this girl. There was a momentary silence, then more thumping. I said quietly, “She’s glad to see you.”
Our contact at this facility greeted us and asked if we’d like to start in the activity room. We followed her into a room that was crowded with wheelchairs. A few aides stood in the room, but it was mostly teenagers—young people—strapped into their chairs. The dogs were a surprise. The sounds in the room intensified. There was grunting, some words we could understand, and many we couldn’t. Two girls flung back on a couch as if hurled there by a powerful wind.
I glanced at Deb and her eyebrows shot up. Shelby was unstoppable, always calm, and never bothered by too much noise or stimulation. The same could not be said for Bella. She was on alert, unsure.
“It’s okay, girl,” I told her, slipping a treat into her mouth. I needed her to stay focused on the job, on reaching out to these kids.
I bent close to a boy who looked to be about twelve, bent over sideways so it was hard to see his face. “This is Bella,” I said, “and she’s come to visit you.”
“Bella” he said.
“Yes, that’s right. That’s her name. Want to give her a treat?”
I suddenly realized he couldn’t open or untwist his fingers.
“Is it okay if I put the treat on top of your hand?”
I got a little nod, and Bella very gently took the treat and ate it.
“Oh,” I said. “She liked that. Thank you so much.”
His head went to the other side and I had a sudden image of his parents, of the huge task of taking care of him. And then I thought of all the
things he may never be able to do: ride a bike, go for a walk, swim, have a girlfriend, get married, be a father, work. This seemed so wrong.
I didn’t have time in this crowded room to let sadness envelop me or to ask the unanswerable question: why? I simply patted his arm, told him it was nice to meet him, and followed Deb and Shelby around the room. Nothing stopped either of them. Nothing beat their unflappable goodness.
We were then led through a long hallway into a room that was used for physical therapy. Only the therapist was there, but in two seconds she was on the floor, petting both dogs. Bella licked her face and Shelby wagged her tail, her broad back swaying.
Then we went into a large room with even more wheelchairs and some patients lying on mats on the floor. One girl on the floor was swinging a plastic baseball bat around. I kept Bella far from her. Others were being fed. I stopped by the chair of a boy with a baseball cap on. “You a Red Sox fan?” I asked.
I saw a wonderful twinkle in his eyes, and he nodded.
I told him that Bella was obsessed with balls—mostly tennis balls—and that she could run like the wind and catch them as far as you can throw them. I asked him if I could put one of her treats on his tray and he nodded. Bella put her paws up and grabbed the treat. He made a sound that could’ve been “Yeah!”
I liked that this boy seemed so energetic. So I told him Bella’s story: how she was rescued off a beach in Puerto Rico as a small puppy, taken care of there, and then flown to Newark airport along with forty other dogs.
“Can you imagine the noise?” I asked him, and he smiled.
“And can you imagine how scared those puppies were in the cargo hold of a jet?”
He looked at me, mesmerized.
“Then she was taken to a shelter in New Jersey and she had to have all her shots and be neutered. My husband and I got her when she just four months old. And she was crazy! She chased the cat, ate my sandal, and was difficult to train. But after lots of practice, we did it.”
He did his best to clap his hands. This was the best audience we had ever had. I knew the room was full of other children, but I couldn’t walk away. I wanted to stay here where I had a connection, a friend. Bella looked at me and waited. Deb and Shelby were on the other side of the room. I looked into this boy’s brown eyes and saw such tenderness and composure. How did he do it, locked in this broken body?