Garage Shelving

It's been a while since we've really touched upon home-improvement, so in order to clean up the mess that is our supply corner in the garage--whereupon we stuffed our supplies in every last inch of workable space on an old wood desk that the previous house owners left behind--we decided to assemble a storage shelf.

It was a fairly simple pressed-wood shelf with a metal frame. We're not happy with the pressed wood, but we're cheap and it seems sturdy enough, so we bought it.

After the all the supplies were temporarily moved into the house and the crud vacuumed up (including some spiders and a very dead, squished cockroach--eeww), we have the shelf assembled.

Here it is with all our belongings stored. Yes, we're proud to have assembled one shelf and get part of the garage more neatly in order. After the laziness that sets in upon completing our wedding, this is a huge accomplishment.

As an added bonus, Tung also managed to mount the shop light in the garage. Now, brighter light is but a cord-pull away!

 

Grief, and Healing

They say that grief cannot be defined or written, only felt. For the loss of a pet, whose life spans just do not come close to matching up with a human's, it is in both presence and absence. Grief blatantly rears its head the moment you come home from the vet's office where you have just put your dog to sleep, living in the few objects that your dog owned and loved in his lifetime: his feed and water bowls sitting empty underneath the patio, his bath towel hanging limp across the handle of the lawn mower, his bed in the hallway where he slept the nights away with you. It surreptitiously hides in spots and corners even after you have tucked all those tangible objects away from site--the rugs placed across the laminate flooring where he liked to lay, the spot underneath the patio where he rested when weariness and pain got the better of him after evening meals, the empty window where he poked his head out past the curtains, forever waiting for you to come home after being away.

Grief whispers memories both happy and bittersweet in your mind, preventing you from keeping your head in the present. It grips you so vehemently, raking claws across your ragged heart, stealing away your breath. Even after your heart has healed in slow and clumsy layers, the scars live underneath, leaving an essential part of you forever changed. Sometimes the sun comes out, and for an instance, you hear the birds and the swish of cars, and you observe the autumnal leaves changing colors outside to remind you that the world keeps spinning, and you must go on, too. Other times, you are beached at an unidentifiable point along a railroad track, unsure of where you are headed or when it will end.

To distance ourselves from the pain after Argos died, Tung and I went to Davenport Beach. A late-summer heatwave lashed through the Silicon Valley, and we escaped to the misty coolness of wind and waves.

Something about the sea is very soothing. The salt-tinged air heals prolonged allergies from a valley basin plagued with smog and dust. Strong winds are buffered by large cliffs that have stood the test of time. Sea breezes trace swirls and patterns in an artistic display of white water foam.

Tung climbs the bluffs

I am standing amidst the waves

 Davenport's waters lap noisily through excavations in the rocks. The water turns a blackish green as it explores the mouth of the shallow cave.

The waves lap on as the earth spins, a soothing aural pattern of crash-and-recede, crash-and-recede.

 Those who frequent the beach's nightly beauty build bonfire rings with logs protected by Davenport's smooth and colorful rocks.

After we had been playing at the beach for some time, a happy black Labrador Retriever and his Poodle pal came bounding up to me. I didn't think I could stand the sight of another Labrador so soon, especially since I lost it during the drive to the beach when I saw a dog sticking its head out of a passing car. But this Lab with his tongue happily lolling out and his gait so full of life and energy, gave me no reason to grieve. Some dogs are old and some are young; some live on and some die. This is the way things should be.

Three nights after Argos died, I dreamed of him. He had just come bounding in after a good run in our yard. I could feel and smell the warm sunshine emanating from his shiny, golden fur. His tongue was lolling out happily and he was smiling. I called to him by his nickname, "Gosey!" and he responded right away, whirling around on his hearing-impaired side, the right ear that had at one point been bloated with a hematoma. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my subconcious behalf, but I like to think that he had come back to say goodbye to me, so quickly after he departed this world. Some days, it was difficult to even haul myself out of bed. "But this is right," he was saying. "It was time. I am happy now, ok now. And you should be, too."

For Argos

When I first saw the sheer bulk of him even in puppyhood and the huge size of his paws, I couldn't believe what I was getting myself into. We were there to take him home with us, Tung and I, and all his relatives--uncle, grandma, dad--looked enormous. This was a dog that would grow up to outweigh me. He was a Labrador Retriever, the breeder assured us, with some Rhodesian Ridgeback mixed in. I couldn't walk away from him then, the only yellow Lab in a litter of black puppies, leaving a trail of submissive urine as he tried to crawl back to his mother. What an awkward, clumsy oddball. The perfect pet for me to love.

We named him Argos, after Odysseus's dog, so that he would be loyal and faithful to the end. A week after we brought him home, he gradually came out of his lonely, shy shell, tagging along with me wherever I went, tripping over his own big paws, floppy ears bouncing.

He hated the collar. Couldn't use a leash. Still suckled when he was deep asleep. Was scared of the family cats. Thought he WAS a family cat by licking himself excessively to groom as they did.

Took to his Squeaks toy and Rope toy and many more toys down the line: Tennis balls, Kong, Giggly-Wiggly, Stuffed Pheasant, Stuffed Heart, Moo.

They say pets become closest to the person who offers an article of clothing for them to sleep with because they imprint on that person's scent. After the loss of our previous Labrador, my mom tried to convince me to never own a dog again--the pain of parting with them was so great. But for me, the joy of being a pet owner outweighed the heartbreak of eventually losing them. Before I could manage to offer Argos my article of clothing, though, my mom was the first one to toss her gray fleece sweater to him, which he dragged around with him wherever he went, like a Linus blankie. He soon figured out which one of us in the family to sucker for scraps.

He contracted Parvovirus when he was just a puppy, and we thought we lost him then. Several days spent in heartbreak away from him as they healed him at the vet's, he came back to us. He grew strong and gangly in his adolescent, too big to fit into his usual hiding places when it came time for a bath, still trying to cram himself in there because he wasn't aware of how fast he grew. We did silly things like flip his long Labrador ears up and backward to take pictures of him.

He loved birthdays as he realized that every time one of us in the family got a year older and sang the birthday song, there would soon be cake for him, too. He loved Christmas as he could smell his own wrapped present when it was placed under the tree; sometimes he wouldn't wait until Christmas morning to open the gift himself, so we'd awaken to the sight of our laminate floor littered with gift wrap tidbits drenched in drool as he chewed away happily at his new treat bone or toy.

He loved fowl; when we went to a park with ducks, or that one time when there was an honest-to-goodness chicken crossing the road as we took our usual walk around the neighborhood, he started salivating and making after it like it was runaway KFC.

For a Labrador Retriever, he didn't retrieve very well. He'd go tearing after whatever you tossed away from him, but as soon as he took it into his mouth and you politely asked for him to return the item, he'd give you the "Eff you--that'd be a dumb thing for me to do" look, and you'd end up getting more exercise than him from having to chase him down to go another round.

He learned how to catch a frisbee really well but would go through so many by mangling them to plastic bits. He made a great ottoman--round and barrel-chested, perfect height, soft and warm.

He never strayed far from home. Times when we'd accidentally leave the fence door ajar, he'd make it out to the front yard, and with a history of lost dogs in the past, we'd frantically run out looking for him, only to find him seated quite calmly at the front doorstep to be let back in. Being part Rhody, he was a "by-the-clock" dog. If you didn't feed him by his usual breakfast and dinner times, he'd start whining like it was Armageddon. I could always count on that big yellow head peeking out from the front-facing window as I came home every day from college, from my first internship in corporate, from my permanent job, from late nights out with friends. Always there waiting, deserving his namesake.

Argos ended up living in two houses when Tung and I moved away from our families to live together. He deftly played the roles of being the family dog and "our" dog as we got him when we had just started dating and kept him until after we got married.

Over the years, he was privy to all of us human beings' frivolity, senselessness, emotional outbreaks, and downright sillyness; yet he'd never judge, thumping that tail of his and flipping upside-down for a good bellyrub to cheer us up, or knowingly coming up to us and resting his snout on the edge of our beds to comfort us when we were most alone.

We knew something was wrong when he started leaving leftover kibbles in his bowl. When you've got a Labrador, "the only animal in the world that would actually kill itself eating," as one coworker put it, leftovers were an abnormality. In the days that swiftly followed, he refused water. When Tung and I came to pick him up from the family home for a trip to the vet, his eyes had already sunken in, and he was more lethargic than usual.

At the vet's, they stuck us in that back room as we awaited the diagnosis, and that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach started to settle in. From his x-rays, the vet suspected cancer that had already spread in his lungs and around his stomach. It snuck in so fast between his regular vet visits for routine exams. They referred us to a specialist oncologist, and the prognosis was slim with only about a 17% success rate. Instead of hooking him up to IV catheters and tubes, we decided to bring him home with us for his last days.

There is no pain like knowing the difficult decision that most of us have to make as pet owners was looming around the corner. Every day came with a fresh wave of hope as he successfully hoisted himself back onto his feet to resume his normal functions. Followed by the heartache of seeing him slump back down from weariness mere minutes later. Followed by the guilt of having to put him down when he was still so lucid, still maintained control of his bodily functions, still wagged his tail when we came by to check up on him.

Each time he ate small morsels of food fed by hand, we celebrated; each time he spit out yet another pill deftly disguised in food, we were bereft. Hovering close to sleep but never quite achieving it, I'd get up in the middle of the night whenever I heard a scruffle of claws, a deep-throated sigh of pain. Since he wouldn't take water, I'd feed him chicken broth to rehydrate him, and out of love for me he tried to oblige and drink only a little; he'd pretend to take food that he'd let dribble out of his mouth after he fell asleep. One day when I coaxed him to drink the soup and he kept turning his head away without lapping up a single drop, I lay down next to him and gave up.

But he wouldn't let me. That shy, awkward, klutzy little puppy, so like me in those ways, taught me strength that I didn't know I had. He wagged his tail to show his spirit. He followed me with his still-lucid, very bright eyes when I moved around as if to encourage me. As the painkiller drugs wore out of his system, he'd hardly grumble or whine. When I sat next to him and told him what I had to do and why, he nuzzled my hand as if he already knew. He was too weak to stand up today, his last day. After all his beloved family members came by to wish him farewell, we carried him to the car on his comforter. During the ride to the vet, I kept telling him that he was a good boy, a brave boy. I promised today was the last time he'd have to come in on a scary vet visit, and that the pain will stop soon.

After they prepared for his departure and wheeled his gurney back into that infamous Back Room where we waited, we got a few minutes with him. When he saw me again, he licked my hand as if to tell me he loved me, and that he understood. Like when I met him for the first time, I couldn't walk away from him then, either. We held him and stroked him and whispered to him as he passed, and he went peacefully, knowing he was not alone on the last leg of the journey that he had to take.

He gave us a good run, one of the most vibrant decades our family could have ever known. Each day, he brought us joy, mixed in with the occasional and inevitable times he'd pissed us off by tearing up something that wasn't his toy, by stealing food off the table to satisfy his insatiable Labrador appetite when we weren't around. He saw us through relationships that became marriages, through funerals of loved ones, through major life changes. He taught us about responsibility, courage, and the indomitable strength of the heart.

His name was Argos, and he was loyal, loving, and faithful to the end of his days.

Argos
March 30, 2002 to October 2, 2012