Mom

Sawan and my mom had a special bond, as well.  He started calling her mom (and sheepishly asked if that was ok) long before we were married.  My mom is the “keeper” of the Hoggatt family lexicon.  We have special words for things (commode=remote control).  We have special names for each other (Poor Honey=anyone who has had a bad day or is sick).  We have special phrases that we say (Lazy ham.  Or hamster.  Cori thought that’s what “Lazy hound” was when she was little, and it stuck and then was expounded on).  I spend a lot of time with the family.  This could have intimidated Sawan, but on the contrary, he loved my family immediately, and also immediately picked up on the lexicon and joined in.  It was just so cute, and I think it totally endeared him to my mom right off the bat.

My mom is the one (well, the non-professional) that I process my grief with the most.  She’s never lost a husband, but six months before Sawan died she lost a brother and the day we lost Sawan she also lost her dad, so she understands loss in a way that a lot of people don’t, and she’s really engaged with her emotions in a very healthy way.  This makes her my favorite one to talk to about my pain.  I swear that sometimes she has to be thinking, at the end of our conversations, “Ok, that’ll be $125, please.”

There’s just something about that mom relationship.  When I’m sick, I still want my mom.  I want to call her to tell her my tummy hurts.  I’m almost 32 years old.  She’s still the best comforter.  It looks a little different now than it did when I was little, but, if I need it, she’s still there to take care of me.

She’s beautiful.  She’s soft.  She’s generous.  She doesn’t wear mom jeans, and she drives a mini cooper (how many grammies can say that?).  She lets my dog tear up her back yard, even though it’s her pride and joy.  She’s learned how to order my drink at Starbucks, and she doesn’t even like coffee.

It’s so hard to put in to words how thankful I am for my family.  I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by this project that I set up for myself, because once I start writing, I realize how large the thing I want to communicate, and how small and insufficient words can be.  I am, however, loving the spirit of thankfulness that this is causing me to live in, as I try to communicate to them.

Mom, thank you so much for being my sounding board, and my comforter.  

Arthur gets a Haircut

Arthur got a haircut on Wednesday.  We went to see Bronwyn at Oona’s.  She’s awesome.  For some reason, I’m not exactly sure why, dog grooming usually takes about 3 hours.  I think that maybe they stagger the dogs or something.  Wash one, then wash the other, then trim one, then trim the other, but every other place I’ve ever taken him takes 3 hours.  My dog hates the groomer.  He hates the bath.  I’ve tried everything I can think of, but he just doesn’t like to be wet.

So Bronwyn gets his haircuts done in 45 minutes.  I’m not sure if this is out of thoughtfulness for my dog, or out of self-preservation.  When I go back in to pick him up all the girls are wearing earmuff looking headphones, the kind you see the airport guys wearing on the tarmac.  It’s because my dog is yelping his high-pitched, annoying bark.  He’s yelling, “Mom, come get me!  I know you can hear me!  Do you know what they’re DOING to me in here?  MOM!”

The funny thing is, I’ve heard that most dogs act all embarrassed when they get back from the groomers, and hide behind furniture for a few days.  Not my dog.  Once he realizes that he doesn’t have to stay at the groomers and be tortured, everything is right in the world.  He struts around like he’s God’s gift to female westies.  All you have to do is tell him that he looks “handsome.”  He’s like, “Um, yeah, I know.”

After: Sir Arthur

Before: Hairy McShaggerson

My Dad

I have recently reconnected with a childhood friend.  She said something that has me thinking.  She said how lucky I am to have my amazing family around me.  I couldn’t agree more.  I’ve decided to tell a few things about each one, why I’m thankful for them, especially in regards to this last few months.  I’m going to do this in order of age, not importance.

Dad

My dad and Sawan had a very special relationship.  He called my mom and dad “Mom and Dad.”

When Sawan and I had our first conversation on the phone, it turned, as it inevitably would, to fishing.  He was SO into fly-fishing.  I could somewhat talk about it because my dad likes to fly-fish.  So he and I chatted about that a little bit.  I told him that my dad loved to go, but hardly ever caught fish.  Sawan told me that he’d have to fix that.  And he did.  I think Sawan would have loved it if I would have liked fishing with him, but he settled for the fact that I at least knew something about it.  One time, he was preparing for a trip to the San Juan river, and was telling me about a special fly he needed to tie for it, and I said, “Oh yeah, the Yong Special.”  His jaw dropped about a foot and then he was just like, “Wow, I love you.”  I knew what it was because my dad had talked about it so much, and the funny name had stuck in my head.

The first Christmas that Sawan and I were together, he bought my dad a little fly box and put in a few flies that he had tied.  My dad showed it to me the other day, and told me that it was one of his most prized possessions.  That same day, they went out to cast my dad’s fly rod in the back yard.  I watched them from the window.  I have always loved to watch men cast fly rods.  My dad is a big man.  He was a line backer in college (yeah, I didn’t date much in high school.  Boys were afraid of him.).  There are few things that he does that can be described as graceful, but watching him cast is a thing of beauty.  It looks like a dance.  I have no idea what they talked about out there, but I remember watching them, thinking that it was just so beautiful, watching two of the men that I loved the most in the whole world, together, talking and casting a fly-rod.

So that was the beginning.  They went on lots of fishing trips together.  My dad caught lots of fish.  Sawan ruined him for fishing, I think.  Sawan told me after what ended up being their last fishing trip together that he was always sneaking a look at my dad’s fly boxes and filling them up for him.  Sawan tied his own flies so he always had more than he could ever use.

My dad took care of me so well that first night of my widowhood.  He handled so much.  He came in early the next morning (after my first night alone) to check on me, and for us to try to figure out our plan for the day.  I remember my first words being, “I made it.”  And he said “Atta Girl.”  And that being so important to me.  Just so encouraging.

He has been my hero so many times in this last year that I can’t even count, from stuff with the car, to offering to come over and plunge the toilet, to talking me off a ledge when the dogs had killed a squirrel in the back yard, and it was just so gross (“It’s ok, just put a bucket over it and I’ll take care of it when I get there.”).  When there’s things that I feel I just can’t do, I can count on him to either give me a pep talk so that I can manage it, or he’ll handle it for me.  I’m sure I’m going to think of a million more things that I’m thankful for about my dad after I post this, so I’ll just say that these are some.

Thanks, Dad, for taking such good care of me.  Thank you for loving my husband like a son, and being like a father to him.  I love you so much.

Fishing together, March, 2009

The Good Citizen

Arthur passed another big test today.  It was his, and I’m not making this up, Canine Good Citizen.  That’s what they call it.  It’s an AKC sanctioned program that is often the first step for service and therapy dogs.  They actually say that when a dog gets his certification it’s recognizing a dog for his “good manners.”  Bwahahahaha!  I’m not sure why this cracks me up so much.  I guess it’s because I think that he does things that are so human, but it’s weird to me when something like the AKC humanizes animals.  He almost didn’t pass because one of the requirements is “supervised separation.”  I put him in a “down, stay” and leave his sight for 3 minutes.  He’s supposed to stay down and not move, but he’s also not allowed to make any noise, and my dog wants to cry the whole time.  He’s afraid I’m not coming back.  The irony?  We’re just around the corner, so I’m all nervous the whole time, and I can hear him crying for me, and the song playing on the radio was Kansas' “Carry on my wayward son, Don’t cha cry no more.”  They had to check the rules for him, and apparently it’s OK if he makes noise as long as he’ll be quiet when commanded to by the test giver, which he did.  So, phew.

After a rough day of sleeping and going to class, he’s now passed out on my bed and barking in his sleep.  Must be a good dream, where Arthur the Squirrel Slayer rides again.

Since Sawan did most of the training with the Fella before he died, whenever these milestones are hit for us, I always want to tell Arthur, “Your dad would be so proud.”  But it makes me feel silly.

I’m hoping that this means that we can quit going to the group class on Saturday afternoons, because the working at 7:30 on Saturdays to get clients in in time to leave early for the class is kicking my butt for sure.

That’s the Arthur update.  He’s such a good citizen.

All tuckered out.  His fav place to sleep.  On top of furniture.

The Corn Maze

A couple of weeks ago, Ellie and I were supposed to have a date to go see a movie.  But instead of the movie, it was such a beautiful day; I decided that I would try to talk her into going to the Corn Maze at Chatfield.

I had friends that had been doing this for years, but they always got their group together on a Saturday and I’ve worked nearly every Saturday of my adult life, so I never got to go.  It became a mental block for me.

I had always wanted to go to one, but finally came to the conclusion that that was something that you did on Saturdays with your family and another family, maybe.  I had literally had the thought, when Sawan and I were under contract to sell the shop, “Maybe this fall we can finally go to the corn maze.  We won’t have our own baby yet, but maybe I’ll be pregnant and that will count and I won’t be working on a Saturday.”  Well, it didn’t quite work out that way.

These are the things that I’m learning.  I can still do fun stuff like corn mazes even if it doesn’t fit into the category that I originally thought that it would.  I went with my sister.  No kids.  Not pregnant.  Just me and Ellie, and Arthur.

Luckily, he got to go, because he’s a service dog.  There was a sign that read “NO PETS” at the gate, but he’s not a pet, he’s a service dog.  So I wasn’t worried about it.  He had his vest on, and his license was in his pocket.  The man at the gate said “Um, no pets.”   (The “You, idiot, didn’t you see the sign?”  was implied.)  I said, “He’s not a pet.  He’s a service dog.”  He laughed.  Then, realizing I was serious and unwilling to back down, said, chuckling, “He’s awfully small to be a service dog.  What’s he servicing?”  I told him it was none of his business and walked right past.  This was my first experience with someone being downright rude about the service dog thing, so I was just authoritative back and it all worked out.

Me and the bloodhound

I’m actually not quite sure what all the fuss is about with corn mazes.  You intentionally have to get lost, and then find your way back to the same spot.  (It would make more sense to me if you ended up at a different place then where you started…)  There has to be a metaphor for life in there somewhere.

Arthur was quite well behaved, and I think having the blood hound with us made it so that we were only in there about an hour rather than the 4 hours we could have been given that it was my first time and Ellie has no sense of direction (Hi, Ellie!  It’s OK; you’re really good at other stuff!).  Ok, he was no help at all; he mostly wanted to eat the pieces of Kettle Corn that people had dropped. 

Overall, it was a grand adventure, and we had fun.

Ellie and I in the corn maze

The Texas Widow

I’m obsessed by this story of the widow of the man who got shot on the Texas Mexico border.  I can’t figure out what to think about it.

I’ve read some of the articles and seen some of the stories on the news, and I just don’t know what to make of it.

I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be her. 

On the one hand, it seems everyone is skeptical.  I found myself slightly skeptical, too.

The story is, a husband and wife were going on jet skis on a lake that is on the border between Texas and Mexico to take photos of a partially submerged old church.  They were attacked by pirates and he was shot.   She couldn’t get his body onto her jet ski, and she felt she had to leave him there to escape, and now they can’t get the body returned to them.  In the process of investigation, a Mexican official’s body with a severed head was left outside a government building, presumably as a warning to back off the investigation.

When I originally thought about all of this, I thought, even if he outweighed her by double, with her adrenaline going, she could have gotten him on her jetski.  But then I remembered that they wanted me to move Sawan from the bed to the floor to do CPR and I was too afraid to.  So, there’s that.

And it seems sketchy that they can’t find the body if he was wearing a life vest.  But, I think that means that the pirates came and took him, not foul play by the wife.

I think that it’s so sad that the wife is always the first person that they look at.  She’s going through enough. 

I just have so much compassion for her in this situation.

To have to lose your husband, and have been there in the middle of your worst nightmare, and be so frightened, and then to have to put your grieving on hold while you try to get everything sorted out.  To have no body to be able to use for a funeral or a memorial service,  to feel like you had to do all this press before it was too late, while you’re in the state that you’re in, when nothing makes any sense, and on top of that to have people not believing that you’re telling the whole truth, would just be so devastating on whole new levels. 

I remember at the beginning feeling like I was, on a small scale, a “People Magazine” article.  Like my story was one of those sensational ones that you just never hear so every acquaintance I had ever met wanted to know what was going on.  I literally had a client call the salon and use the words “I just want to get the scoop.”  (She’s no longer a client.)

But to actually BE in People Magazine, in the middle of the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, with no training for how to be in the spotlight, has to be bewilderment on a whole new level.

Not only has she lost her love, but she’s lost her anonymity, and is having to grieve in such a public way.  My heart just breaks for her.

The Truck

Sawan had a 1999 Chevy S10 pickup.  It was white.  He bought it new.  Somewhere I have a Polaroid of him shaking hands with the salesman.  He loved that little truck. 

This was the only photo I could find of the truck.  Sawan, with my cousin, Becky, and her husband, Tushar, fishing on the SanJuan in 2007.

It was a fishing truck.  The back window was full of TFO and other fly-fishing company stickers.  It took him to the mountains to go fishing so many times that no one could count.  If those seats could talk, I’d love to hear about all of the conversations that took place in that cab. 

The bed had held so much stuff.  It moved all of his stuff into my condo when we got married, it carried Christmas trees back from the mountains when we’d go up there to cut them down.  The day before he died it carried all of my files and important stuff from the shop getting it ready for the sale.

He kissed me for the first time in that truck.  I remember thinking that night, that that was my “last first kiss.”

In spite of all that, I never really liked the truck.  It was old.  It stunk.  It had that stale coffee and cigarette smell constantly, even after we quit smoking.  The weather sealing on the driver’s side door had quit working so it was always really loud, like you were driving on the highway with the window rolled down.  The heater actually worked really great, but there were four settings, and number two didn’t work.  Also, the gas gauge was broken.  He ran it out of gas several times.  He learned to be disciplined (about the only thing in his life he was very disciplined about) about filling it up all the way, and setting the trip counter, and knowing that he had 320 miles before he had to fill it up. 

Plus, who has a truck in Colorado that’s rear wheel drive?  It didn’t do great in the snow.  I made fun of this all the time, saying it was kind of a “pussy truck.”  That didn’t earn me big points.  Clearly I was wrong about this, though, because trucks are trucks.  When we were dating and my nephew got to ride in it for the first time, his eyes lit up, full of little boy wonder, and said “You and Sawan have a TRUCK?!”

I drove it exactly once.  I told Sawan that I should drive it just in case I ever HAD to.  He agreed.  It had a bench seat, so bringing it to where I could *almost* reach the pedals put his knees by his ears.  (I’m 5’2”).  Also, he was pretty much the only one that had ever driven it, so it had a permanent indention of his butt.  This gave it a sort of “sunken in” shape that made it very difficult for me to see over the steering wheel.  I drove it from the Safeway at Hampden and Logan to the nursery at SantaFe and Belleview.  A distance of 3.43 miles. 

This is why it was impossible for me to decide what to do with it.  I didn’t want to drive it anywhere.  I didn’t want to even get in it again.  I had opened it to get something out in the week or so after he died, but that was it.  Thinking about what to do with it was just paralyzing.  I knew I would have to clean it, and getting out the Fresca cans and coffee cups was just more than I knew how to deal with.  Plus, I had no idea what I would find behind the seat, and that was daunting, too (once I had been totally out of hangers for laundry and he moved the back seat for something, and there were probably about 40 plastic hangers back there.  He would carry his work shirt down to the truck on a hanger, and not wanting to wrinkle it, put it on in the parking lot at work, then stash the hanger behind the seat.).

So it sat in the parking lot across from the condo. 

On Friday, my friend who still lives in the condo building called and asked what I had finally decided to do with the truck.  Ummmm….Nothing, yet.  It was at this point that we both said bad words because we realized that it had been stolen. 

In some ways this feels like a good thing.  Now I don’t have to clean it.  I don’t have to decide what to do with it, someone else decided for me.  I’m also really sad, though.  It had a little bag hanging from the rearview mirror with a little rock fox in it.  And his emergency fly-rod and fishing kit were in there.  I would have liked to have had those.

So, goodbye, little truck.  You safely carried my man to the mountains for me so many times.  You carried our lives around in your bed.  We fell in love in your cab.  Thank you for being so good to us.