Introduction / Contents

The Next Great Adventure: A True Story

Introduction / Contents

I think I know myself fairly well. I know, for instance, that I lean to the glass half empty side of perception, and that it often takes me a long time to collect data, think things through, and come to some sort of understanding. I know that writing not only forces me to organize my thoughts, but it also gives me an outlet for those thoughts. More importantly, however, in this particular exercise, it has allowed me to share some of my very personal and private thoughts. 

I never would have guessed sharing my personal thoughts would be something I wanted to do. It's funny how things change, how we grow, what becomes important. I began The Next Great Adventure: A True Story as a way to cope with my grief, to come to a personal understanding. As it has progressed I have been contacted by many people who have told me that our story touched them, and so I've been sharing it with friends and family.

The intent was to record the story and do a little introspective mining to help me understand, to get to a more comfortable, less confusing place. The goal was met, at least for me personally. Though the story is unique to our personal history, I think it contains some truths that anyone can apply and understand. At least I hope so. Though the stories may be interesting, please look for the truth you can find in them.

The Sequential Stories

The Adventure Begins

... how we met

An Interlude

... a glimpse into the future

The In Between Time

... deciding to get married

Oh, Atlanta!

.... our first year together

Gone to Texas

... getting back to our roots, early marriage

H-Town, Part One

... career decisions, role changes

Birthdays, Babies and Brides

... settling down, making a home

Things Change

... becoming parents

Faith and Control

... finding faith, some regrets

For Richer, For Poorer

... unexpected riches of a long marriage

Sowing & Reaping

... coping with life changes, cancer diagnosis

Saved

... the adventure ends

The Background Stories

X Marks the Spot
... the day after she died

30

... more details on how we met and married on the occasion of our 30th anniversary

A Cancer Catharsis

... my thoughts after the initial cancer treatments

An Easter Story

... the story of my baptism - key to much of the truth in the sequential stories

Christy Street, circa 1969

... another key

Not Nearly Enough

... from Cindy's memorial service

Saved

The Next Great Adventure: A True Story

Saved

Initially, the move to Sugar Land seemed to be just what we needed ... the next great adventure, a new start for a new chapter. When we learned the cancer had metastasized it took on a different feeling. Instead of an adventure, it was more like a winding down, a tidying up, a gathering of loose ends. I was struck by the symmetry of the course of our time together. We started out as young newlyweds, living in a city far away from friends and family, sorting it out ourselves. Here we were again, in the same situation. Though we had plenty of offers of assistance and many people who wanted to come help, that was not our way, it was not what we did, nor what Cindy wanted. Instead, we walked alone, for the most part, at least in the practical, everyday sense. It was what I needed to do, and what Cindy wanted to do, and I can't think of anything we would have done differently given the chance.

Cindy had been treated by the Texas Oncology group at Baylor-Plano, and they were the doctors that confirmed the cancer had returned. We met with the same group here in Sugar Land, which was only a few miles from the new house. They recommended an initial treatment plan in consultation with her previous oncologist, and told us that there would be no cure, that eventually the cancer would win, but in the meantime we could treat it as a chronic disease, attempt to slow down the growth of the cancer, and to extend life and maybe find some time in remission. There is a long list of approved, available medicines and as long as she could physically receive and handle the treatments, we could keep trying different drugs. It was a race to find effective medicines.

We understood. We knew that even the best of the approved treatment options had 30% or less effectiveness. She received the most effective treatments on her first rounds of chemo, and they didn't work. I checked into getting an appointment at MD Anderson, one of the best cancer treatment and research facilities in the country. As long as we were here, I felt we should take advantage of the resource. Cindy was ready to just start treatment, but I signed her up on line for an appointment with an MD Anderson breast cancer oncologist with offices in Sugar Land. We met with Dr. Saleem and Cindy was immediately comfortable. Dr. Saleem re-iterated that it would be a chronic disease treatment program, but added that there were a significant number of clinical trials available at MD Anderson. We didn't think long about it, and soon Cindy was an MD Anderson patient, signed up for a clinical trial, and we learned that there was a whole new level of navigation skills required for their version of the cancer treatment industry.

We had been cautioned before switching that MD Anderson could be impersonal, that you could feel like a number or research subject rather than a patient. There was a lot of that, but Dr. Saleem was her relationship touchpoint and that was all she needed, to have a person behind all the labs and biopsies and forms and appointments.

My employer, and especially my co-workers, were very supportive, allowing me to work a flexible schedule to take Cindy to appointments and treatments. A typical MD Anderson day involved leaving the house at 7AM, dropping Cooper at doggie daycare, then driving down to MD Anderson Mayes Clinic in the medical district. Once there, it was up to the 7th floor to have her power port  accessed, and then down to the labs on the second floor to have blood drawn. After an hour or so wait, long enough for the labs to be run and recorded, it was up to the 5th or 6th floor to meet with Dr. Saleem, or the research nurse if she was in a trial, to see if she was in good enough shape to receive treatment. Then it was on to the infusion area, where we signed in and waiting for a bed to be available. Depending on the medicine, infusion would take anywhere from 2 to 10 hours. Some days I had to leave early to pick up Cooper from daycare before they closed, and then go back to MD Anderson to pick up Cindy.

Treatment days were surreal. They were structured and planned, but oddly chaotic because you did not know how long the wait time might be, if a room would be available, what the lab results might say or how long it might take the pharmacy to create the chemo cocktails. I always brought my laptop, but rarely worked. It was as if, for that period of time, nothing existed outside of the schedule, the medicine, the information from doctors and nurses, and the waiting. Inside the massive MD Anderson facilities, where they have indoor electric shuttles to take patients from building to building, was like being in isolation, with a view to the outside, healthy world, but no way to be part of it. Aside from the bureaucracy and facilities and the constant poking and procedures there were the other patients. Hundreds, maybe thousands, filling up the comfy chairs and coveted recliners in the halls and waiting rooms. The caregivers and friends accompanying the patients displayed their own patience, courtesy, and compassion, but they also all had this subtle tension, from frustration, perhaps, or maybe it was just the uncertainty of it all. Furrowed brows. Tight lips. Tiredness, all around.

Cindy would often sleep on the way home, exhausted. Leaving MD Anderson, two thoughts always burdened me. The first was that we were not alone, there is a massive cancer treatment industry and whatever our current situation, we were just another patient/caregiver pair on the spectrum of suffering. The second thought was always, "My God. Why?"

After each of the periodic diagnostic scans I would sit down and compose an email to send to friends and family, explaining the latest news, trying to be factual, trying to be honest, but not alarming. In truth, it was dire the day metastatis was confirmed. Our options were limited and, of the ones available, I think we made the best choices we could. We rarely received good news from any of the diagnostic scans. The only upbeat thing in my email was typically that we still had options, there were still other drugs, other trials. By early fall she had been through two clinical trials, two or three other 'standard' treatments, radiation to kill the cancer that was invading her spine, multiple biopsies, and months of unrelenting pain that could be medicated to a tolerable level, but never really went away. From the beginning Cindy never wanted to ask what the prognosis was. She didn't want to know, she didn't want facts to influence her hope or her effort. Dr. Saleem refused to answer me when I asked, always deferring to Cindy, so I stopped asking. Finally, in early October, Cindy asked the question and Dr. Saleem told her three to six months.

We had a Lehigh trip planned for Parent's Weekend later that month and we told Griffin in person. Cindy did not want me to share the prognosis with anyone, though I did share with some close friends and family who kept quiet about it until Cindy was ready to talk. Neil and Usha hosted all of Cindy's family for Thanksgiving and it was obvious she was losing the battle. I insisted, so we finally had the discussion with the Calhouns at the Christmas family get together. I don't think anyone was shocked. Her decline was pretty obvious, despite the brave face she put on. By January we were grasping at straws, seeking treatment at the MD Anderson Targeted Therapy Center , which is basically just a last-chance, 'Phase 1 - first human test' research group. She never really got healthy enough to get into a treatment program. February and March were a blur of emergency room visits, infections, fluid in her lungs, short hospital stays and long, sleepless nights.

One Friday she was in really bad shape and after calling the doctor I forced Cindy to get in the car to go to the MD Anderson emergency room downtown. She didn't want to go. She was in pain and miserable, but I couldn't do anything to comfort her. She cried, until we got there, and then she got mad and uncooperative. They admitted her to the hospital. We spent Saturday getting tests and evaluations. The weekend staff, doctors we didn't know, were informative, but not especially compassionate. On Sunday they sent us home, saying there was nothing further they could do, and recommending palliative care, hospice, to be administered at home. At first, it was just to be every other day. By Wednesday, she was practically immobile, with no strength in her legs. She was on oxygen. I carried her to the bathroom. She slept. She complained. She was forcing herself to eat, but not eating much. By Thursday, the hospice nurse was recommending around the clock care. At the hospice evaluation on Saturday afternoon, the supervisor guessed she had 12 to 24 hours.

At 4AM Sunday morning I woke up, went to the kitchen to get a drink of water. Checked in with the hospice sitter who said there was no change. Cindy was sleeping in the recliner, the only place she had been comfortable for months, I kissed her on the forehead, told her I loved her, and went back to bed. I had no sooner put my head on the pillow than the sitter called, "Mr. Turner, things are changing." I woke the family that were staying with us and called the others at the hotel. Not long after, maybe 90 minutes later, she passed away, and around 8AM the cremation service came and removed her body.

I was so wrapped up in myself and my feelings, that I only vaguely recognized that the friends and family who had come to see her in her final days, were also suffering. I regret not noticing, not being able to help them, but I know they weren't expecting that from me. It is hard to see when you are in that moment. You think you are prepared, but there is no preparation that is sufficient. That same day, after everyone had left the house, my thoughts went back to all those patients I had observed at MD Anderson and I thought, "those caregivers will be in my place someday," but then I realized it wasn't just cancer patients. It's everyone. It was a strangely comforting thought. Others had done this, everyone else will, my grief was not unique. It did not make me special. It made me humble. What is my grief compared to all the grief that has been and will be?

I missed her terribly. Still do, though mostly at odd unexpected times, not like the oppressive, smothering grief of those first few weeks. I've spent the last several months trying to reconcile memories and dreams, to get to some sort of understanding about how to deal with the loss. I've been writing here. I've been taking care of myself physically. I've been talking to a wide variety of people. I am not delusional enough to think that I can understand it all. I just need 'some sort' of understanding, something of substance, something representative of the love and respect and time that we shared together. I know that whatever I come up with won't be complete, I just want it to be true.

Sowing & Reaping

The Next Great Adventure: A True Story

Sowing & Reaping

Menu from Stampede 66
31st Anniversary Dinner

January 15, 2014, 31 years into it, we were poised for the next phase, the next adventure, and our conversations often drifted to retirement, to what's next, to the future. Cindy was well into her career at Oxy and many of her peers and mentors were actively planning retirement. She had declined promotion and transfer opportunities for many years, opting to stay put in Plano, close to family, to have a stabile home, and to continue working with the group she thought so much of. I had been wandering around the IT/software world for nearly 20 years, and in 2012 had taken a job with a small, private software firm that offered some equity in the company as part of the compensation plan. The plan was to make that my last hurrah in IT/software, work hard for 5 or 10 years and hope to cash in when the company made it big. Griffin was entering his senior year in high school. He was ready for what was next, too.

We weren't just ready for a change. We needed one. Like many, maybe most, married couples at some point you get too comfortable, complacent even. You get to the point where you know each other so well there's no point in even arguing. Someone says something, an eyebrow gets raised, shoulders are shrugged, and you each go on doing whatever it was you were planning on doing anyway. Nobody gets mad, you already knew what was going to happen. We were well past that point and though life was easy, it was not especially fun, and we knew we needed an adventure, a new plan for the upcoming empty nest phase.

Our life was busy, often too busy for my preferences, and we rarely did things that were "just us" as a couple. Family, friends, work and church filled every hour. That was our normal mode of operation. Cindy never tired of planning, hosting, gathering, and caring, but it wore on me. One Sunday afternoon Cindy mentioned that she had been asked to serve another term as an elder on the Session of our church. I raised my eyebrow. She shrugged her shoulders. I thought it was too much, that she had served too long, and that there was a reason that terms were supposed to be limited. She wanted to do it, she wanted to be involved, and to help our struggling congregation however she could. I didn't argue and operations continued apace.

In February 2014 I found myself in Suriname, teaching a software training class. Cindy had recently

On the main road - Paramaribo, Suriname

completed a long project in Chile, and we had finally wrapped up a house remodeling project. I was tired of coordinating hectic schedules, balancing priorities, choosing between my work, Cindy's work, Griffin's activities, church, family, finances. I was at work more than I wanted, rationalizing that if I just worked a little bit harder now, to be more efficient in the long run, it would free up time for other things.

Back in Plano, I found myself at the office on a Sunday afternoon, clearing the decks for Monday, when it occurred to me that I didn't really have to be there. That I was working to avoid being at some church social function. For almost 30 years I arranged my life to be with Cindy, and now I was making excuses to not be there. Things needed to change.

In mid-October I changed jobs. It was difficult leaving. I liked the company, my co-workers, the product and much of the job itself, but small companies require individuals to have broad responsibilities, and I did not think I could continue putting in the effort that they needed from me. I moved to another company where I would be doing similar work, but could work from home and would have a few more resources to call upon. The pay was less, and there was no equity, but my plan had changed from hoping to cash in to slowing down and doing something manageable in the long term. Working from home would be a great relief for Cindy, too. I could "hold down the fort" for routine stuff - errands, meals, maintenance - that I hoped would eventually free up time for "just us."

Cindy & Griffin
Plano West Senior High
Wolfpack Band - Senior Night

Two weeks later, early on Halloween morning, Cindy had a biopsy of a lump in her breast. That afternoon, before Griffin was due to be home from school, I heard the garage door opening, looked out the window, and saw Cindy pulling into the garage. Her coming home early, without calling, could only mean one thing. I went downstairs and met her in the garage. She hugged me fiercely, crying, her face pressed into my chest, the tears immediately soaking through my shirt. Sobbing, her only words were "How are we going to tell Griffin?"

Suddenly there were no plans. There was no concern about the future, our relationship, or jobs. We were forced into a one-day-at-a-time perspective in every aspect of our lives. We had no guarantees, and we had no control, but we did have each other. We had always been a good team, leveraging each other's strengths, compensating for the other's weaknesses, and were able to work independently or together, but this was a new test. I knew Cindy had all she could handle, and that she didn't need to worry about me or abandoned plans, and that the partnership would change.

By December things had changed, drastically. We, like most people, assumed the medical community had a good handle on breast cancer. The diagnosis we received in November, however, was invasive ductal carcinoma and the biopsies showed that the cancer type was triple negative, a type that limits the treatment options and is quite aggressive. One night, mid-December, days before the scheduled bilateral mastectomy, we laid in bed, her head on my shoulder, and we talked, discussing a lot of difficult "what ifs." Cindy eventually slept. I'm not sure that I did, but the following day, for me, things had changed.

My role changed, overnight, from partner to caregiver. As I saw the dawn, I saw my new purpose.

Cindy, Griffin & Cooper
pre-chemo haircut - Jan 2015

She was scared, and I was, too, but I knew it was my job to be strong, to be positive, to be accommodating, to be actively involved in her treatment and care, and to do my best to protect her, insulate her, let her just deal with the treatment and disease. She had, as always, lots of plans and multiple priorties. She was determined to deliver on all those committments, and I was determined to relieve her of them the best I could. It was a big change, but fortunately it was something we were equipped to do. We'd spent many years learning to be "independent together." There was no hierarchy, there were no dependencies, we each knew what we had to do and were capable to do it.

Griffin, leaving Mom
behind on Lehigh
campus stairs

We survived 2015, but it was difficult. Between Cindy's treatments and surgeries, and Griffin's graduation and departure to college, it was a year full of suffering and celebration. We learned to navigate the health care system, particularly within the cancer treatment industry, and we managed to make a smooth transition from parents of a teenager at home to simple long-distance worrying about our adult child. For his part, Griffin truly stepped up, handling the transition with maturity, making his mother proud and less prone to worry. Trips to Lehigh were a great break in the routine, and fortunately Cindy's treatment schedule allowed us to make them.

By early 2016 we knew things would be changing again. The next big adventure landed in our lap when it was announced that Cindy's offices were relocating to Houston. She would begin working from Greenway Plaza on July 1st. We spent the spring looking for a new house in Houston, and eventually decided to build one in a developing community in Sugar Land, on the southwest side of Houston. Cindy's commute would be easy, we liked the neighborhood, Cindy loved the house plan, and we thought there was potential for the value to increase. We wanted to downsize, and we did, slightly, but ultimately decided on a house sized for resale. We planned to live in the house until Cindy retired, then sell it and move back to family and Plano.

Cindy began spending some time in Houston and I worked on prepping the Celadine house for sale. We had minor repairs and landscaping to do,  and we needed to get rid of a bunch of things to fit in the new house. The movers estimated that we had 27,000 pounds of stuff and it would take two days and one and one-half trailers to pack and load us, so we began 'Project Downsize.' We got rid of 1/3 of it before we listed the house for sale in August. I stayed in Plano to sell the house; Cindy lived at the Residence Inn across from Oxy offices. She came back to Plano periodically for check ups and to visit, and I would visit her sometimes, too, to check on the house and keep her company. We started having a few more "just us" opportunities, but she was a long way from recovered and most of her energy was spent on work. I was happy just to sit with her and read while she watched TV and dozed.

The Sugar Land house was scheduled to be completed in mid-December. Cindy had some further

Cooper waiting to leave Plano

reconstruction surgery in early October, and the Plano house was packed and loaded later that month. We slept on a blow up mattress in our bedroom for one final night, and the next morning loaded up her car, my pickup and a small U-Haul trailer with clothes and things we didn't want in storage. We moved into a temporary space, a two bedroom apartment, and lived there until December. We closed on the house on the 20th and moved in on the 22nd.

Frances' reward for
helping to unpack

There was tons of unpacking to do. Cindy's Mom, Frances, came down to help, and Griffin was home for Christmas break. We went to Plano for Christmas but came back to finish unpacking. When New Years rolled around I opted to stay in Sugar Land and unpack and keep Cooper from another kennel stay, while Cindy and Griffin went back to Dallas for the holiday. They stayed with Frances. Griffin called me early New Years Day to say that Cindy had hurt herself and was in a lot of pain. As she was going to bed New Years Eve, she coughed really hard and felt something pop in her chest. She felt like something from the reconstruction surgery had torn and scheduled an appointment the next day with her plastic surgeon. They did an MRI. They did not find anything wrong with the reconstruction, but they did see a spot on her sternum that was concerning. CT scans and biopsies later confirmed that the original breast cancer had metastasized and it was now in her bones, specifically in her sternum and her 8th right rib, near the spine.

At the end of her initial treatments the oncologist told us the goal was to make it five years post treatment. Statistically, if you made it to 5 years, there was an 80% chance it would never come back. I knew from all of my initial frantic research that if it did come back, the prognosis would be 18 to 24 months. In late January, 2017, about a week after our 34th anniversary, I knew that our time together would be limited, and that it would mostly be consumed by treatment and medication and misery. I knew this would be the final adventure.

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that all human plans are subject to ruthless revision by nature or fate. I can confirm the accuracy of that statement. We planned to retire. We planned to return to Plano. We planned to spend time together, just us, reconnecting and enjoying the results of our work. None of those plans worked out. It would be easy, and maybe even understandable, to be bitter about it all, to be Job's wife, to say "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die!", but that's not who we were, that's not who we intended to be. It's trite, but we knew we could only control our response, not what had happened.

In the few years leading up to Cindy's diagnosis, we struggled, not that anyone would notice, and not that we were any different from any other random couple that had been together for 30+ years. We were too comfortable, too complacent. We took each other for granted. We had expectations. The plan was to regroup, reconnect, recapture some romance and fun as soon as we had time, as soon as we could retire. What I realize now, in retrospect, is that the years we spent loving and learning and living didn't create complacency in the relationship. Instead it built the trust, and the confidence, and the dependability that we would need to endure, to eventually help each other make it until the end.

I am not ashamed to admit that many of my early prayers were "why me? why this?" Cynically, I often ended up at Galatians 6:7 ... "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow." ... and wondered what I had sown to reap this particular tragic harvest? Now, I realize that we had sown love, and that our harvest was not deliverance from tragedy, but the strength to bear it.

For Richer, For Poorer

The Next Great Adventure: A True Story

For Richer, For Poorer

Just before the wedding, in January of 1983, my friend and mentor, David Johnson, gave me some marriage advice that he said he was passing along from Jerry Hancock.

"There are three things you need to take care of in marriage - money, sex, & in-laws - not necessarily in that order."

When I shared that advice with Cindy she mostly agreed, but said she would replace sex with romance. I was 22 years old. For me they were the same thing so I didn't see any need to argue the semantics. It seemed like solid advice. My biggest concern was the money part. We were pretty broke. I didn't see how we could get poorer, but I also knew that if we didn't start making some progress toward richer that it could become a problem.

The "for richer, for poorer" part of the vow seems to have an economic intent. Even at 22 I knew that marriage required huge practical considerations, everything from housekeeping to managing finances to common courtesy for each other. Our goal was never to be wealthy, but we did want to make money a non-issue. My parents argued about money a lot. Cindy's father, Darvis, was the tightest man in 5 counties, at least until Cindy's brother Rodney took the title away. We were both acutely aware of how money impacted a marriage, and we took "for richer, for poorer" seriously, by working hard and steadily and, for the most part, living within our means.

Over the next 35 years I learned that romance does not, in fact, equal sex, and that rich or poor applies to more than finances.

We spent our first Christmas together, just us, in our one bedroom apartment in Atlanta, Georgia. We

had gifts for each other, and a few that had been mailed to us from friends and family. We had a small, real Christmas tree and part of our Christmas budget included lights and ornaments for it. We cooked a special meal. We spent time on the phone, in the days of long-distance charges, with family back in Texas. I learned that "It's A Wonderful Life" was Cindy's favorite Christmas movie and it seemed to always be on. It was a wonderful first Christmas together.

When I close my eyes and put myself back in that place, the memory that comes back is Cindy waking me up early, telling me it was time to go open the presents that Santa had left. We never did the Santa thing growing up, Santa was for suckers, but I woke and smiled and said "let's go!" I had a Santa present for her, too. She was anxious to see if I liked the present she picked out; she was excited to give it to me. I was anxious about the presents I had bought, too, but in a different way. I was worried about it. Would she like it? Would she think it was silly? Would it be sufficient?

I received a present from Darvis and Frances, my in-laws. I fretted over what it might mean, why they had picked that particular thing. I wondered about their motivation ... did they do it out of obligation? ... what were they expecting from me? ... did Cindy coach them on what to get? To my credit, I did discuss this with Cindy. I confessed I was not good at receiving gifts. In my world there was always a cost associated with a gift. I was always acutely aware of the sacrifice that had to be made to provide a gift for me, and consequently there was always gift guilt, that my gift from limited resources meant someone else got something less. Cindy spent a good part of the day convincing me that my gifts were given out of love, and not for any other reason. I had always enjoyed giving gifts, but never knew how to receive a gift. Learning how to accept a gift was my most memorable present that year, and it made my life richer.

Christmas in Plano, in the house on Emerson Drive, was always memorable. By that time we weren't as worried about having the money to spend on presents, but rather if we were spending too much, if we were spoiling our son. Once, we bought him a Thomas the Train table top railroad as his big Santa gift. My high school friend, Linda, who now owned a toy store in Amarillo, sold me their store display at a discount. We frequently spent Thanksgiving with my family in Pampa. We had new friends in Plano from our church. All of my siblings and their spouses and families came to visit us at one time or another. There was always at least one Calhoun family holiday activity at our house. We had visits from old Kraft friends, like Gloria, and old Garland friends, like Cindy P. My brother's mother-in-law, Detta, made traditional British Christmas pudding for us one year. Even my old Pampa friends like Eddie and Denton friends like Joey stoppped by.

There was always a party, a Christmas get-together of some kind. It could be work related. It could be family. It could just be the girls from the bunco group or couples and kids from church. The world I grew up in was very insular. There were no family get-togethers at our house, other than my older siblings making it home for the holidays, and I honestly don't recall my parents having any social friends, and they didn't have anyone over to the house. Cindy pulled in everyone from my life, from high school friends to new acquaintances, treated them like family and taught me to be welcoming, to be hospitable, to enjoy being with family and friends, and it made my life richer.

I distinctly remember waking one Saturday morning around Christmas in the house on Celadine. It was cold out. The heater was on, blowing warm air across our bed. Either the sun was just rising or it was overcast; the light coming through the slats of the window blinds was muted. Cindy and I were sleeping back to back, and as usual, she had crowded me to the very edge of my side of the bed. I rolled toward her, nudging her back to her side to gain a little extra territory for myself. She woke briefly to tell me, "It's early. It's cold." She turned back toward me, searching for the warmth on my side of the bed, and ended up with her head on my shoulder. I marveled at how well she fit, how I knew the smell of her hair, at how many times this scene had been repeated over the years. I surrendered myself to the familiarity and comfort. Time stopped, and I wondered.

We had been to a Christmas party the night before, a group of church friends had gathered at someone's house to eat and drink and sing carols. This particular seasonal Saturday the schedule for the day was light. Some last minute shopping where Griffin and I would go out to buy his Mom's present and maybe pick up some gag gifts. It was also the day for Griffin to bake Oatmeal Scotchies for Bonnie. There would likely be an impromptu get together for a meal with friends at some point. Cindy had presents to wrap, which would take several hours and a few Christmas movies to complete. Kerry would likely come over to help. Nothing seemed urgent. Nothing seemed difficult. I was looking forward to it all.

As I lay there, wondering about it all, I was overwhelmed with contentment, almost to the point of tears. Our home. Our family and friends. Each other. I realized how fortunate I was, what a blessed life I was living, and how I had spent far too much of it focusing on my discontent. Growing up I moved carefully to avoid amplifying the underlying tension in our house, trying to steady the emotional whipsaw.  I was never quite good enough, and consequently never really succeeded at the balancing act. When you know you're not going to win, it's easy to give up, blame yourself, and be discontented. On that morning, in that moment, with that brief experience of peace and personal insight, I found a new source of strength, a new way of accepting uncertainty. Shortly, I would come to need it more than I imagined.

I attempted to capture that morning in a rambling, mystical sort of blog post in January of 2014, though on re-reading it's more confusing than explanatory. In simpler terms, the richer from our wedding vows did not ultimately mean money. It meant the complexity and depth and character of anything that develops with use and age and stress over time. Whiskeys and wine, antiques and everyday objects, your life and relationships ... they all develop their own unique and truthful richness, a patina, that can't be manufactured or faked.

Cindy made my life richer by teaching me how to give and receive gifts, by expanding my concept of
family and what familial relationships should be, and by walking with me on a path that eventually allowed me to glimpse contentment. I hope that I made her life richer as well, but it's hard to see the impact you have on others. My intention was to enrich her life, not take from it or make her poorer, because I loved her. Surely I must have, given the time and energy we spent on each other, but even if I did not, I still remember our first Christmas, where I learned that gifts given and received in love need to be cherished, not questioned. It is a rich life, indeed.

The Best Dog Ever

We got the dog because Kerry couldn't say no to a rescue. We got a poodle because Cindy had declared "The next dog will not shed!" We got a Standard Poodle because I don't do little, yippy dogs, and because Griffin would have been happy with any dog. Despite all those conditions, we some how wound up with the best dog ever, and I will forever be grateful for having him in our lives.

The Whitson's and the Turner's made a parenting deal ... we would hold the line on getting a family dog, and we told Griffin "When Haley gets a dog, we'll get a dog" and the Whitson's told Haley the same thing about Griffin. Kerry was the weak link, though to be honest, I would have cracked sooner or later. Both families had had older dogs that had to be put down when the kids were very young and we knew how much time, energy, money and emotional investment dog ownership required.

Our dogs were Pearl and Cosmo. They were Dalmatians. Pearl was the hard, smart, protective one

and she was my dog. Cosmo was the goofy, sweet, cuddly liver spotted one, one of Pearl's puppies, who loved Cindy and couldn't get enough of her attention. When Pearl got old and very sick, we had to put her down. We brought her blanket home for Cosmo and a few months later he just gave up and we had to put him down, too. He just quit eating or drinking and refused to get up. He had never spent a day without his mother until then, and I think he died of a broken heart.

 Anyway, somehow Griffin learned that Kerry and Haley had come home with a rescue dog, Isabelle, and excitedly asked "When are we getting a dog?!?! Haley got a dog!" and I went in search of a Standard Poodle. We found one in Oklahoma. He had been born in a barn, was four months old and the runt of the litter. The breeder was anxious to get rid of him, so we drove to Sherman, meeting her halfway, paid her some cash, put the super fluffy puppy in the back of our SUV and headed home.

On the way home, somewhere around McKinney, he threw up. On the carpet. The first lesson in dog ownership was a failure. I ended up cleaning it up. Neither Griffin or Haley, who went on the puppy excursion with us, was willing to use paper towels to clean the barfed up kibble. He was cute and "Parti-colored," mostly white with black/grey/blue splotches. We debated names all the way home and once home he was promptly named Cooper, after the MINI Cooper parked in the garage.

Of course, the plan was for him to be Griffin's dog, but Cooper was having none of that. The first night we attempted to put him to sleep in his kennel in Griffin's bedroom. He howled and cried and barked for 2 hours until I finally relented and brought his kennel down to our bedroom. I would like to think that he had identified me as the alpha male in his new pack and just wanted to make that bond. In reality, he picked me out as the person most likely to cater to his every need and give him everything he wants. He was smart like that.

We bonded pretty quickly. I was working from home, or as I prefer, "living at work," and so we got to

spend a lot of days together. It wasn't long before I could say "let's go to work" or "time to clock in" and he would sprint up the stairs, waiting for his pre-work treat. He'd spend the day at his security post on the upstairs landing where he could surveil both the front and back yards, dutifully barking when there were potential intruders at the gate like the UPS guy and the lawn mowing crew. If he needed to go out, he didn't whine or scratch, he'd come put his head in my lap and give me puppy eyes. In the middle of the night that involved him putting his head on the bed and staring at me until I woke up.

He liked to chew plastic bottles, so we taught him to take them to the recycle can when he was done, for a treat of course. He liked to sneak drinks of coffee from any unattended cups, and preferred black coffee to anything with cream or sugar. He didn't like to swim at all, but he loved to lounge in the shallow water of the pool's sun ledge. He had a long, lanky, looping sort of gait when running, reminiscent of Tigger's bounce, not especially fast, but then he was never in much of hurry. He was a calm dog, excited to greet visitors, but never jumped or got too nosey. We'd have a house full of people and he would curl up on the rug or a cool spot on the tile and just keep an eye on things. When the kids got too rowdy, he'd go find a quiet place. He never demanded a lot of petting, usually content to just be with the family, rather than in someone's lap.

When he was a few years old we had a very scary episode where he refused to eat or drink, lost a

bunch of weight and energy and strength. For a few days the vet was at a loss to diagnose the issue, but then determined that he had Addison's disease, a hormone disease that affects Poodles and Chows and a few other breeds especially. He's been on daily meds to control it since then and we generally managed it well. Since the move to Sugar Land he's been doing great. He put on some weight, which was always an issue, and we've been getting a mile walk in nearly every day. He was a picky eater, but I take a lot of responsibility for that. He never over-ate or scarfed food like some dogs, so I indulged him with whatever he liked.

I just turned my chair, to go get a smidge more bourbon, and he wasn't there, in any of his customary, proximal spots. I miss him already.

Today I learned that he had a tumor in his heart that was effectively untreatable. He was miserable. His heart was pounding all day and his breathing was labored. I elected to put him down. It wasn't a hard decision. He was the best dog ever, and I could not bear to see him suffer through treatments and procedures when I knew he would be perfectly content to put his head in my lap and go to sleep with me holding him.

Last October/November, when Cindy got so miserable that she could only sleep in the recliner, Cooper would sleep in the corner of the living room, where he could keep an eye on both of us. We had gotten past his habit of wanting to go out in the middle of the night, but he would come put his head on the bed and wake me up if Cindy was restless or if she told him to "get Dad." In late February, early March, when Cindy was pretty much home full time, he stopped barking at the doorbell or when strangers came up the sidewalk. He did it a few times and it always startled Cindy, who was either sleeping or zoned out watching TV, and she'd yell "Cooper! Stop!" He was a smart dog, and learned quickly not to scare her. Instead he would run to me, anxiously wagging his tail and looking at the door.

Later in March, when the hospice workers came, he would hover next to me, waiting for clues on

how to behave. If, for some reason I had to leave to run an errand, leaving Cindy home alone, he changed his routine. Instead of going to his bed and meeting me at the back door when he heard the garage door go up, he would sleep either behind Cindy's recliner or on the corner of the rug in front of her, and he would wait for me to enter and check on them, instead of greeting me at the door. The full time hospice folks were only here for a couple of nights. When that began, Cooper stayed in bed, dragging his cushions into the very corner of the bedroom, and only coming out when coaxed.

For about a month after Cindy died, Cooper refused to leave my side. If I was in a room, he was there with me. The master bathroom had always been off limits to Cooper, and he respected that everywhere we lived. The morning after Cindy died I stepped out of the shower to find Cooper in the middle of the master bathroom floor, waiting for me to step out. I scolded him and he left, but he laid down with his butt in the hallway and his nose in the doorway.

For the past three months he's kept me company, and kept me sane. He was the recipient of too many one sided conversations. He listened to my disjointed, lost and broken, spoken prayers. He heard me reading the bible out loud, because that's something you can do when it's just you and the dog. And he let me hold and pet him when listening to those sad break up songs that take on a whole new meaning when your lover is truly, truly gone. He never complained. He never asked for anything other than my attention. He was my faithful companion on morning walks and a steady worker, who never missed a day, napping in the corner under the ceiling fan or in the warm sliver of sun by the front windows.

I did my best to give that sorry, spoiled rotten poodle a good and happy life. He more than lived up to his end of the bargain. He was, and always will be, the best dog ever.