Year: 2009

I’m childless and strong

Sue Fagalde Lick childless and strong

I’m turned 57 years old last week. Don’t panic, book editors. I look 47 and have the energy of 37, as you will see. My age is not the point—or is it?

If you had dropped by my house recently, you would have seen me shovel ice from the driveway and sidewalk, move 600 pounds of wood pellets, assemble and transfer a dog crate almost as big as I am from garage to car and back again, take the pellet stove apart and clean it, shovel dirt for two hours in my back yard, walk one big dog for a mile and turn around and walk the other big dog for another mile, pretzelize my body in yoga class twice a week, plant eight cement stepping stones in my back yard, scoop about a hundred pounds of dog poop, fix my own toilet, stand at the top of a ladder moving boxes, and arrange for construction of a new fence, plus all the girl stuff one would expect, the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.

When my mom, God rest her soul, was 57 or even 37, she could not do any of these things. She had no idea how, and she barely had the physical stamina to walk to the end of the block. My father and my brother handled all the “guy jobs.” With all her needlework, Mom probably had the nimblest fingers in California, but she never exercised the rest of her body, never really took good care of herself. She was too busy taking care of Dad and my brother and me. It was what women in her family did. If Dad had died first, she would have had to call my brother or a neighbor to help the “poor widow.”

I refuse to play that role, even though I’m alone now. My husband, who has Alzheimer’s, is in a care home, and I don’t have children because he had his share before I met him. When the job is truly too big for one person, I do call for help, but I’m smart, I have muscles, and I have no sons to call on. If I don’t know how to do it, I can learn.

Part of this comes from being my father’s daughter. At 86, he is strong and stubborn. But part of it comes from being childless. I think we have to be more self-reliant. Perhaps I have mentioned my Aunt Edna here before. She celebrated her 100th birthday on Dec. 29. She has been widowed for about 50 years and never had children. She was well into her 90s before she needed help from anyone, and she had already made arrangements to move into a senior residence. Likewise, her sister Virginia, who is 92, lived on her own until she fell last year and broke her neck, but darned if she isn’t up and ornery as ever, even though she still has some health challenges to conquer. In Grandpa Fagalde’s day, he would have called Edna and Virginia “tough old birds.” Well, that’s what I want to be, too. I want a big crowd like the one that gathered for Aunt Edna’s birthday to talk about how strong Aunt Sue was, not about how sad it was that she never had children.

Now I’m not saying that moms can’t be strong. Raising children is hard work, but some mothers just don’t learn to be independent or physically fit. I have a close mom friend who is my age and can barely walk. She says she’s “old.” I’m just saying there might be a connection.

Dogs too much for me?

Sue Fagalde Lick Chico and Annie, dog mom, too aggressive

I know this is not about babies; it’s about dogs. Again. If I had children who turned big and wild right as I was becoming a single parent, I don’t know how I would handle them. They might end up in foster care. Then again, I wouldn’t be in my 50s, so I might have the energy to parent them properly. Perhaps if I had had children, I wouldn’t have felt so driven to raise puppies. Anyway, that ship has sailed.

With my husband in a care home and his doctor confirming yesterday that he needs to stay there, I’m on my own. I’m grieving and trying to adjust to big changes in my life. I know I’m not thinking straight, but for the first time, I’m wondering if I should find another home for Annie and Chico. The dogs were in the kennel last night and this morning, and it was so peaceful.

When I went to pick them up, I was asked not to bring Chico back. He’s too aggressive toward other dogs. I don’t see him that way, but he and Annie are very rough with each other, clacking their teeth, throwing each other around, banging into the door, the furniture, my knees. I need to acknowledge their half pit bull ancestry. They love me and would never hurt me on purpose, but I can’t handle them both at the same time. Chico can pull me right off my feet. I wish I’d had these thoughts before I approved an $1,800 fence and the posts were cemented in. I love my dogs. They’re only a year old, and they will calm down, I hope, but maybe they’re too much for me.

Of course I didn’t expect them to get so big, and I didn’t expect to be alone at this point.

Even as I pet these big dogs and hug them to me for comfort, they exhaust me. I wonder if I should give them away. I don’t want to separate them. They’re siblings who have always been together. Maybe the new fence, going up tomorrow, will make life manageable. But are they worth the effort now that my life has changed so dramatically? My father says I should get rid of them. He may be right.

Then again, he doesn’t like my stepchildren either.

Dogs don’t care why you’re crying

Sue Fagalde Lick Uncategorized

I’m having a depressed day. It took an hour to pry myself out of bed, seeing little reason to do so. But for the dogs, I might never get up, and now I’m spending the day with these beautiful creatures whose only concerns are eating, sleeping, playing and peeing. My husband’s condition is worse every day. I try to wall off my emotions, but it doesn’t always work. Earlier I was sitting at my desk, crying. Human children would want to know why I was crying and demand that I fix them breakfast, but Annie just let me hold her. She and Chico both licked my face, and now they welcome me to their pack, no questions asked, no “what’s the matter”, no “snap out of it”, no “I need . . .” You’re sad; I’m here. That’s it. You rarely get that from a child. Plus you have to suck it up so you don’t worry them.

Get rid of the dogs? I can’t. A lot of trouble? Oh yes. Expense? Wow. But they’re what I’ve got now, and I’m glad to be in their pack. I took them from their mother; they’re my responsibility. They’re not like an old computer. They’re living beings, looking at me with those big brown eyes, plopping themselves into my lap, welcoming me to their yard. As long as we all eat, sleep, potty and stay together, everything’s cool.

Get rid of the dogs?

Sue Fagalde Lick Chico and Annie, dog children, immaturity of childless women


I’m having an $1,800 fence built for my dogs because they keep jumping over the existing four-foot fence. Don’t anybody tell my father–who believes computers are the work of the devil. He thinks I should get rid of the pups. My life is too complicated to deal with them now, he says. But these are my babies. I adopted them when they were 8 and 9 pounds. Now, at one year plus two weeks, they’re about 65 and 70 pounds, but they’re still my puppies, and they’re the only babies I’ll ever have. I can’t just give them away. They’re family.

Yes, they interrupt my work, my meals, my favorite TV shows. They have ruined the carpet and they’re always chewing up something, but I’m proud of how beautiful they are and how much they have learned. When they smother me with kisses or fall asleep leaning against me, my heart melts. I have made a commitment to them, to love them and care for them for life. When they go, I’ll get one small old lady dog, but Chico and Annie are family. Sorry, Dad. Maybe this is some of that immaturity that comes from not being a mom, but when you say get rid of the dogs, I’m more determined than ever to keep them.

Dirty Dog Day

Sue Fagalde Lick Alzheimer's Disease, Chico and Annie

Those who are following my saga know that my husband Fred has Alzheimer’s Disease and moved to a care home almost two weeks ago. We have no children together, just our dogs Chico and Annie, who turned one year old last Monday. It’s a pretty lonely house these days.

Yesterday, it got even lonelier when Chico and Annie escaped out a gate I had left unsecure. After visiting Fred, I was just turning onto our street when my cell phone rang. My neighbor Carol wanted to tell me the dogs were out. She couldn’t catch them, she said, but she left the gate open in case they wanted to go back into the yard. Uh, no.

I parked, grabbed two leashes and a pocketful of dog treats from the house and started walking and calling. My old dog always used to come home on her own, but these guys are young and crazy. They haven’t had a walk in weeks. I was all dressed up from my visit to Fred, wearing new shoes and no jacket. The temperature was in the 40s. I walked and walked and walked, moving so quickly I got shin splints and barely felt it. Calling, “Chico, Annie, come, I’ve got cookies,” I felt that the whole neighborhood could hear me, but saw no dog of mine responding. I ran into the man who walks his basset hounds every evening before dinner. He hadn’t seen my dogs.
I had heard other dogs barking, but now I knew they were barking at the bassets.

The visit to Fred had been very difficult. At lunch, he had cried and said he wanted to come home. If you’ve ever been through this, you know how much it hurts. Now I pictured life without my dogs. I know that all those dogs on the posters are rarely found. They’re usually dead or lost forever. I pictured myself sitting in that house all alone and fought to keep my composure and keep calling.

It was cold and getting dark. I walked through a construction site, muddying my new shoes, aching for a glimpse of a black or tan dog. Even if I could have just one of them back . . . I couldn’t care for my husband, and now I had failed at caring for my dogs.

At the end of the road, I turned back toward home, thinking I’d put on a jacket and get in the car and drive farther into the wilderness area to the east. But as I came up the driveway, weakly calling the dogs’ names, I suddenly saw a yellow dog emerge from the across-the-street neighbor’s yard, soon followed by a black one. They zoomed past me to the door, tongues out, panting, filthy with mud. I grabbed them, sobbing.

What does this have to do with being childless? Nothing directly, but it’s my life because I don’t have any other relatives close by to help me or keep me company and because these dogs are the only things I ever have or ever will raise from infancy. I’ll get back to my childless research soon, but this is the life I lead right now, sitting on the deck in the dark, hugging my dirty dogs against me as they lick my face until I get up and feed them.

One-year-olds, canine vs. human

Sue Fagalde Lick Alzheimer's, Chico and Annie, childless old age, dog parents


Chico and Annie are a year old today. They’re dogs. This is one case where things are definitely different between pets and children. I have a photo of my niece Susan covered in white frosting, her arms and legs chubby and tanned in her striped sunsuit. The whole family gathered at her maternal grandmother’s house to celebrate the occasion. Another picture shows my brother cuddling her in his lap. You can see the resemblance, the same dark eyes and black hair, the lips so like my mother’s. She’s learning to walk and talk, and everyone adores her.

Folks adore my puppies, too. My church choir friends even gave me a puppy shower when I adopted them last April. But asking them to attend a birthday party would probably be pushing things, especially after all the support they have given me in other aspects of my life lately. So it’s just the pups and me. I can’t bake them a cake. Any gift I gave them would be shredded all over the back yard before the sun sank into the sea. All I can do is hug them and say, “Wow, you’re a year old. We made it.” They’re housetrained, and all the odd things they have eaten and excreted have not killed them yet. They’re a long way from becoming calm, mature dogs, But even when they grow up, they will never be like my niece, who is a young adult now, beautiful, smart and old enough to build a life away from her parents. Chico and Annie will be my cherished friends but never my children.

Nor are they Fred’s children. My dear husband, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, is living in a care home now after a series of falls that led to two days in the hospital and 14 days in a nursing home where he wasn’t allowed to leave his wheelchair even though he could walk. He is in a good place now, a beautiful place in the hills above Newport where he is well cared for and loved for his sweet, easygoing nature. However, the dogs are not allowed inside, so I haven’t taken them there. To be honest, he is already forgetting them. He doesn’t even remember that he fell the first time trying to corral them after they escaped from the back yard. Why he fell two more times two days later, we don’t know. Back spasms? A small stroke? Now he has Lucy, who roams the yard at Graceland and nuzzles against his pants and shoes when he ventures out for short walks on his unsteady legs.

Fred’s son Michael has been here off and on during our transition. Everyone gets to know him quickly because he is six foot four, with a unique hairstyle, and he’s usually the only person under 50 not wearing a nursing smock. Michael is good with his father, helpful and caring, thinking of just the right thing to do or say. His presence is a blessing to both of us. This crisis has brought us closer than we have ever been, with very honest talks, not so much as mother and son but as two adults hurting over someone we both love.

Everyone says you can’t count on your children to help you in your old age, that that’s not a good reason to have kids. True. In fact, on “family day” at Newport Rehab, I was often the only visitor. Grace, an immigrant from China who runs Graceland, shakes her head at this. “In my country, we honor our elders. I don’t understand.”

I don’t either.

Anyway, happy birthday, Chico and Annie. Michael isn’t too happy with them because they just woke him up. But when he’s gone back to Portland, I’ll have them to snuggle with, and that’s something.

My thanks to everyone who has sent good wishes and prayers during this difficult time. Our troubles are not over, of course. Fred still has Alzheimer’s, and now we’re living in separate homes. I’m visiting every day and overseeing prescriptions, insurance, and countless other details, but God has taken Fred out of my hands and put him into the care of many capable hands, and that’s a blessing.

Emergency time out

Sue Fagalde Lick Uncategorized

Dear friends,
My husband fell and has been in the hospital this week. He will not be coming home for a while if ever, due to a long-term illness that has gotten much worse. I have been looking at nursing homes. So I have not been able to post anything new this week, but I will as soon as possible. The newsletter will also be delayed. Thanks for your understanding. Please feel free to post your own questions, comments and ideas while I’m doing the hospital shuffle.

Those little things I missed

Sue Fagalde Lick Alzheimer's, dressing another person, emergency room, mother knowledge


Yesterday my husband fell and hurt his back. Couple that with the fact that he is in the middle stage of Alzheimer’s Disease and I have to ask and answer all the questions in the emergency room. In a sense, I have to play the mother role. The nurse insisted he needed a tentanus shot and quickly mumbled something about pain and possible fever, you know, just like with your children and grandchildren. And I thought, wait, I don’t know, but then we were moving on to other things, like how to tend the big scrape on Fred’s knee and how to handle the pain medication. I desperately hoped someone was writing it all down somewhere. People just assume that if you’re my age and married, you’re a mother and grandmother. Therefore you know all about wound care and shots and such.

The other challenge, since Fred couldn’t bend, was undressing and dressing him. My main experience in that area was with dolls and they didn’t yelp if you moved them the wrong way. It is truly difficult to put on socks and tie shoes from the opposite direction. Ditto for buttoning shirts. I guess moms get so much practice they can do it without thinking, and I suppose in the coming months and years as Fred’s illness progresses, I’ll get plenty of practice, too. But kneeling on the floor in my brand new pants, trying three times to get the shoe strings tight enough showed me I have a lot to learn.

How did he fall? While I was out running errands, he was running after the dogs, who escaped while he was cleaning up the back yard. He tripped on a jagged spot on the sidewalk and went flying. I pulled into the driveway to find Annie zooming by in whoosh of blonde fur and Fred hobbling to the car in tears, saying, “I’m hurt.” So add fixing that sidewalk, getting the dogs better trained to come when they’re called, and putting leashes near the door to my to-do list. A fisherman down the road had tried to lasso the pups with boat rope. Fred got Chico home, but Annie slipped out of the rope. Luckily she came straight to me when I got out of the car and I hauled her into the house. And yes, I need to think about whether it’s safe to leave Fred home alone for even an hour.

The good news: Fred is already feeling better, and he’s a lot of fun on vicodin.

Grandmother Grief

Sue Fagalde Lick Carlos Reyes, grandma grief

You never know when the childless grief will hit. It’s like a bullet lodged inside your heart. For a long time, you don’t feel it, but then it shifts and hurts unbearably until it finds a new resting place. At least that’s how it is for me.

The other night at a poetry reading, the group’s founder brought her granddaughter. I had heard her say that she was “smitten” with this child, and now I could see why. About four years old, she looked like a tiny version of Grandma with the same curly hair and dimples. They spent all evening together, snuggling, looking through the camera, talking and laughing. My friend was in the throes of grandma love, something I will never experience.

Oh, I envied her for this love affair and for the easy way in which she handled the child, clearly well-practiced from her years of motherhood. Yes, the child disrupted the program; yes, her grandmother had to take her out, and yes, the venerable poet at the podium stopped reading to comment on their exit, but Grandma didn’t seem to mind.

The poems I read at that night’s open mike drew praise and applause, and I felt cute in my cap and vest, but that dislodged grief bullet still hurt.

I love my puppies, but it is not the same.

Someone commented here recently about the desire for children being driven by vanity. There’s some of that. Babies can be something to show off and impress people with, but that’s not all there is to it. The love between a child and a parent or grandparent is a special love and an extension of the family into the future. It’s what every other species does naturally. Looking ahead, I see no one, just an aging poet growing old alone.

***
Side note: The featured poet was Carlos Reyes, and his poems are wonderful. Read more about him at www.writersontheedge.org/reyes.html and sample three of his poems at www.caffeinedestiny.com/poetry/reyes.html.

Toddlers, dogs, what’s the difference?

Sue Fagalde Lick dogs and toddlers


I’ve been reading old journal entries about my experiences with my stepdaughter’s children when they were young. On one particular occasion, I note that they ran screaming into the house and within minutes were into everything. Nothing was safe. In no time, Brandon, the youngest, had unscrewed the knob off the cover on my piano. As soon as I got that out of his sticky hands, he grabbed my stapler and refused to give it back. Meanwhile, Stephanie was rearranging all the papers on my desk.

How is that different from my 11-month-old pups, who have grown considerably larger than the puppy in my profile picture? They don’t scream, but they do run full-out into the house, and within minutes they’re into something: papers set aside to recycle, laundry that hasn’t been folded yet, my husband’s shoes, and their favorite, anything made of cloth or paper.

The other night, I came out of my office to find papers scattered all over the floor, giant claw marks in our new tablecloth, and Annie, the blonde, sitting on the big chair, with potholders and napkins spread out before her like a banquet. After screaming at the dogs, I hollered at the husband about how he should have been watching “the kids.” He got mad and closed himself up in his office.

This, I imagine, happens in homes with toddlers, too.

I know dogs are not the same as children. They won’t grow up, move away and hopefully take care of themselves when they reach adulthood. But at this age, they’re both discovering the world and don’t understand why I keep prying things out of their mouths.

Would I rather have children? Not at 56. I don’t even plan to have puppies again. I just can’t run fast enough. But a couple of grandchildren who actually look like me? I’d go for that in a heartbeat.