“Sure, that’s why we’re here,” Sherry replied.
The son knelt down and embraced the dogs, then jumped up and asked, “Can they visit a patient?” He glanced at his father, lifting his eyebrows to seek approval.
His father looked down at the floor and said slowly, with emotion, “My wife is very ill.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder and said, “We’ve seen lots of very sick patients. Which room is she in?”
They led the way down the hall, and as we entered the silent room, we saw the patient lying on her side under the covers. She was asleep, twisted in a fetal position. She was very pale, and we knew instantly that this should be a short visit.
I pulled a chair over next to her head. I sat down and Jake hopped right up into my lap. I gently took the woman’s clenched fist and let her knuckles stroke Jake’s long soft ears.
I spoke directly to her, “This is Jake, and he’s got very long ears. We think he’s part cocker spaniel and part Irish setter.” Her hand relaxed, slowly opened and lightly gripped onto Jake’s ear. Jake glanced at me with his big deer eyes;we knew we’d made contact. I asked the woman, “Did you ever think you’d see a dog in the hospital?”
She opened her eyes just a bit and answered very slowly, but clearly, “No, I never thought I’d see a dog here.” She started to gently pat Jake’s head unaided, with a completely open hand. I smiled. She smiled. Jake smiled.
I said, “He’s got a partner here. MacDuff would like to see you if it’s okay with you.” Sherry lifted MacDuff up. The patient’s face filled with delight when she saw Mac, a beautiful sheltie.
She exclaimed, “My father used to raise shelties.” She asked her son to help her up so she could hug Mac. Every eye in that stark hospital room was on them. Her husband and son beamed.
We didn’t stay much longer after that hug, but the once-solemn room was now filled with warmth. For Sherry and I, this was an absolutely lovely visit with a devoted family. But as we enthusiastically told the nurse about the patient talking and hugging Mac, she interrupted, “You must have the wrong room.” We confirmed the name and the room. The nurse stood very still.
“What is it?” Sherry asked.
She replied, “I have goose bumps.”
The nurse went on to explain that this patient was very sick. Only 5 percent of her brain was functioning. On her arrival, they didn’t think she’d make it through the first night. She’d been there a week, but had not awakened— she wasn’t expected to awake. Family and friends had been keeping a vigil by her bedside the entire time. Now we all had goose bumps.
As the nurse scurried down the hall to check on her patient, we saw the father and son holding tightly to each other outside the room. They were jubilant. We turned and looked down at Mac and Jake sound asleep in the middle of the nurses’ station. I guess miracles are exhausting.
For the next six years, I was blessed with Jake’s company, and I’m grateful for every second. My dog, and others like him, had a power that left me in awe: He lay with people as they prepared for death. He listened as a young mother rehearsed her words to her children, telling them that she wouldn’t be there to celebrate their joys or comfort them in their sadness. He had the ability to help patients overcome pain even morphine couldn’t mask. He comforted family members as they said their last goodbyes to loved ones.
I felt so privileged to be a part of our therapy team, not only because I witnessed what Jake was able to do, but because I had the voice to tell of it, and to celebrate it, both during his lifetime and even now, long after he is gone. It’s simple: My dog Jake worked miracles with his love.
Terry Perret Martin
Medicine Cat
I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.
James Herriot
The doctors sent my mother home to die. A fifteen-year survivor of breast cancer, she had suffered two heart attacks when advanced cancer was found in her lung.
Mom had struggled to raise three daughters while holding a full-time job, yet worked hard to maintain a cozy home for her family. Growing up, I knew only two things about my mother: She had an iron will, and she loved nature. During her days of illness, she told me a third: “I’ve had a miserable life.”
My dad was a difficult man to live with, but my mom did not complain, probably because she could not put words to her own need. Butwhen it became clear that because of her progressive deterioration, my dad regarded her as a burden, she and I decided that she would move to my home.
I had three weeks to make a myriad of arrangements. I changed my work schedule, found transportation, an oncologist, cardiologist, hospice care, medical equipment, a caregiver and bather. My plan for Mom’s final days was simple: She would live with love, and die with grace.
Upon her arrival, after an exhausting five-hour trip, Mom was examined by the home health-care nurse. The nurse took me aside and asked, “How long do you think your mother has?”
“Two, maybe three months,” I said.
The nurse looked at me sadly. “Adjust your thinking,”
he said. “She has days, maybe a week. Her heart is weak and unstable.”
My home, small and comfortable, was a haven to four cats and a golden retriever. The animals had the run of my house. During my parents’ infrequent visits, they’d seen the cats prowl the kitchen counters, the dog snooze on the couch and knew the cats shared my bed. This made my father angry and my mother uncomfortable. I was worried my mother would be bothered by my pets.
We installed the electric hospital bed and oxygen machine, which frightened the cats from the bedroom. I’d moved their furniture, and they were peeved. The retriever, on the other hand, an immature dog with bad habits, was excited by all the changes in the house. She jumped up, barked and shed more profusely than usual.
One cat, however, seemed to adjust perfectly. Otto had been an ugly, smelly kitten adopted from the animal shelter, but he grew into a handsome cat. His short coat was white with black and tan tabby patches, accented by bold orange spots. The veterinarian decided he was a calico. “Unusual,” she said, “because calicos tend to be female.”
Otto was as smart as he was unusual. He had learned to retrieve paper balls, ran to the telephone when it rang and even gave useful hints about how to fix the toilet. Once when I was trying to repair the toilet, he kept reaching into the open tank, pushing on the float with his paw. Since I was not having any success with the repair, I decided he might be on to something. I went to the hardware store and bought a new float mechanism. It worked.
Otto was the one cat who was not afraid of the hospital bed, the oxygen machine or the medicinal smells. Nor was he afraid of the frail woman who had scolded him down from the kitchen counter. Otto jumped onto the foot of Mom’s hospital bed, and stayed.
He was not startled by the nurses. He did not interfere when Mom was fed, nor when she was transferred from bed to commode and back. Whether the disturbance was from changing her bed or because of bathing, he simply waited to resume his post. With the exception of eating and using the litter box, Otto never left Mom’s room.
Days passed, and Mom started to rally. “Not unusual,” I was told, “a rally is often a sign of imminent death.”
I grieved. But Otto would not give her up so easily. He used her improved condition to reposition himself from the foot of her bed to her side. Her thin fingers found his soft coat. He leaned into her body, as if clinging to the threads of her will to live. Though weak, she caressed the cat and would not allow me to take him.
Days turned into weeks and Mom continued to fight. Once, after the nurses had gone for the day, I heard the sound of Mom’s voice coming from her room. I found her with the head of the bed raised. Otto was tucked into the crook of her elbow, listening adoringly as she read from the newspaper. I will forever cherish the memory of Mom’s face with Otto’s paw, claws retracted, caressing the side of her ch
in.
Being vigilant, I made sure juice, water and pain medications were always available. One evening I was surprised to find Mom unassisted in the bathroom, filling her empty medication dish with water. “Mom, what are you doing?” I asked.
Without looking up, she replied, “Getting a drink set up for Otto.” I helped her back to bed. Mom sipped apple juice while Otto drank from the stainless steel dish. Getting that drink set up became her evening ritual.
Eventually, using a walker, Mom began to take walks through the house. She was trailed by oxygen tubing and Otto. Where she rested, Otto rested. Where she moved, Otto shadowed. It seems I had forgotten my mom was a mother. Somehow, Otto knew, and during those days he became her cat child, giving her life purpose. We had come a long way from the days when she used to chase him off the kitchen counter.
Exactly three years have passed since then. The hospital bed and oxygen machine are long gone. The medicines and nurses are gone, too. But Mom’s still here. And so is Otto. And so is the bond that united them in days of sickness.
“You know, I swear that Otto knows my car when I drive up!” Mom says.
He does. Whenever Mom returns home from running an errand, he greets her car at the curb. She carries him up the driveway. They just pick up wherever they left off, with his front paws wrapped around her neck.
Happily, I prepare meals with Mom watching from a stool, and Otto next to her on the counter.
When we saw the oncologist a while ago, he patted himself on the back. “I can’t believe it, Lula,” he said. “I can’t find your cancer and your heart is strong. When your daughter brought you to me, I thought you were a ship that had sailed.”
We let the doctor think what he likes, but Mom gives the credit to Otto.
Thankfully, my mother has put off dying, and Otto continues to share his gift of love—a medicine more potent than any drug a doctor could prescribe.
Joan M. Walker
Sweet Pea’s Mama
The Colorado Boys Ranch (CBR) is located in the southeastern part of the state, a sparsely populated area with flat plains reaching out to the horizon in all directions. For the boys who come here, mostly from the inner cities of this country, I think it must seem like another planet. Not only is the vastness of the terrain unsettling, but many of the boys are living around animals for the first time. Nothing in their previous experience has prepared them for “life on the Ranch.”
I, on the other hand, spent my entire boyhood on a ranch here in Colorado, one of fourteen children. I spent most of my time with animals—horses, cows and dogs— and I know firsthand the magic in the interaction of boy and animal. Now, as the head of the horsemanship program at CBR, I witness again the power of animals to heal broken spirits.
The boys at CBR are what I call “last-chance kids.” Sent by social welfare services, educational systems and private agencies, they are boys in trouble; some have spent time in jail or reform schools, many are escaping severely dysfunctional families, while others have no family at all. Yet all the boys share one basic trait—they don’t trust or believe in adults. They’ve learned from hard experience that no one is truly there for them.
Martin was a typical new arrival. He had been in “lockup” prior to coming to the ranch for a variety of offenses, including assault. The fifteen-year-old had difficulty keeping his temper, as well as a serious attitude problem.
He chose to join the horsemanship program, but obviously he had no experience at all with animals, especially horses. He seemed to consider a horse a strange form of motorcycle, useful only as a vehicle for speed and thrills.
He pushed his way to the front of the line every day, knocking down smaller children in his frenzy to get up on the horse and start moving—fast. We tried to work with him, but he seemed oblivious to anything but his own need for excitement. I wasn’t sure how much longer we could put up with his behavior.
I was wrestling with my dilemma about Martin one morning, when one of my staff flew into my office and told me that one of them are swas ill. I ran to the mare’s stall, and although we summoned the vet immediately, nothing could be done and within the hour she was dead. Thismare had recently foaled so even though we were all very upset, we had no time to grieve as we had to immediately turn our attention to her young baby whose first need was to eat.
We made up some formula and, putting it in a bottle, offered it to the foal. But the little horse was difficult and would not accept the bottle. We had to put our hands in the formula and let her suck the formula off of our fingers. It was a painfully slow and inefficient method of feeding, but we had no choice if we wanted the foal to survive.
At that moment, Martin, finished with his daily hotrod-style riding session, walked into the barn. Muscling his way through the crowd of kids who were watching us feed the foal, he got to the front and started yelling, “Let me feed it! Let me feed it! I want to feed it!”
I showed Martin how to put his hand in the bucket and offer his fingers to the foal. He put his hand in the bucket and thrust his fingers towards the foal’s mouth. When the baby closed her mouth around his finger, Martin yelped with surprise and drew back, shouting, “Hey, it bit me!”
But seeing the tiny little horse groping with her nose in the air for more food, he immediately re-wet his hand and put it near her nose, where she again latched on to his finger and sucked greedily. This time, Martin’s face relaxed into a smile of pure pleasure. Again and again, he put his hand in the bucket and gave it to the foal. “She’s so hungry,” he said softly. Eventually, the foal had enough formula, and like all babies with a bellyful of nourishment she fell into a satisfied sleep.
I looked over at Martin and a jolt of surprise ran through me. He looked like a different person, his face radiant with tenderness. His eyes never leaving the baby horse, he asked me, “What’s going to happen to her now?”
I told him she had lost her mama and she needed someone to take care of her. Then we talked about how it feels to lose a mother, how scary it is to be alone. I’m convinced that some of the best therapy at the ranch happens in situations like these.
We sat quietly together, watching the foal sleep and then Martin said to me, “She’s my baby now. I’ll be her mama.”
And he was. Martin was the best surrogate mother a foal could have had. He came every day to feed the baby horse we named Sweet Pea and to clean her stall. He brushed her, sat with her, held her and played with her. They had a wild game where they took turns chasing each other, which was wonderful to see. Every time I turned around, Martin was there—I think that boy would have slept out there with Sweet Pea if we had let him.
When it was time to halter-break the little filly, Martin asked me if he could do it, and I said yes. When he had started taking care of Sweet Pea, he had begun reading everything he could about horses. In a short time, he had become one of the horsemanship program’s star pupils. As I watched Martin—now a competent and gentle horseman— work with Sweet Pea, it was hard to believe that only a few months ago I wouldn’t have trusted him around any horse, much less a young filly.
Martin was different with the other boys as well. It was now common to see him helping a younger boy to saddle and mount a horse, and encouraging the boys as they learned to ride. And if anyone was as rough and wild as Martin had once been, he immediately told the boy in a firm tone to “Act right around the horses!”
Everyone at the ranch knows that the animals transform these boys. Time and time again, boys who are having a rough time run out of their classrooms and find their special animal, a horse or a dog or even a goat or sheep. The boys will throw their arms around that animal’s neck and bury their faces in a soft coat, and talk and talk and talk, knowing that their animal friend will listen, patiently and silently, eyes full of love and acceptance, for as long as they are needed. The animals are simply “being there” for kids who could never count on that in their lives before.
I’ve always known that the animals can act like mamas for t
he boys, healing hearts that yearn for close contact and love. But now that I’ve met Martin, I see that for some boys, it takes being a mama to become whole.
Jim Kerr
Meant to Be
A few years ago, we had a Lab puppy named Blue whom we loved very much. But because everyone in the family spent so much time at work or at school, it soon became obvious Blue wasn’t getting the attention and training she needed. It was a difficult decision, but we decided to see if we could find her a better home than we could provide at that time.
I asked around at our church and at work, looking for a special home for Blue. A coworker told me that she had a friend whose old dog had recently died. The family was looking for a puppy. I knew of the family: the husband was named Frank and his wife, Donna, was a Lamaze instructor who worked at a local hospital. Their children, my friend told me, were crazy about dogs and missed their old dog tremendously. It sounded like the perfect place.
I spoke to Donna on the phone, and she was thrilled about taking Blue. I arranged for my husband to deliver the puppy the following day, which was a Friday. Frank gave my husband their address, 412 Adams, and told him that he would be home all day, doing work on the house, so my husband should look for ladders in the front yard.
The next morning, my husband took Blue and set off in the car. Our sad good-byes were lightened by the knowledge that she was going to a wonderful home.
Donna and Frank lived an hour away, on the other side of the nearest big town. My husband found the house; the number 412 was clearly displayed and there was a ladder in the front yard. Taking the puppy in his arms, he went up to the house and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He waited a moment and knocked again.
A man in the next yard called over to him, “Who are you looking for?”
My husband said, “Frank.”
“Oh, Frank went to the hospital,” he said. “I don’t know when he’s coming back.”