Hemingway...Bukowski.. and The Ol' Coot...

NOTE TO READER:  As you sip your morning coffee or down your dinner tea insert some incredibly humorous anecdote about life's challenges from Mike Royko or Erma Bombeck here. Then continue with this chapter. Your day will start with a smile on your face. You will dance out the door like Carol and Mike Brady. I loved the "Chicago Daily News" and "The SunTimes." As a kid I devoured the paper like a religion. When I try to be a writer like these iconic figures, I sound like Charles Bukowski discussing his optimistic views on humanity. "It always comes out exactly the wrong way!" It does so lately at least.

When you're a comedian you are in an enviable and unenviable spot. The nice thing is that you can say things others wouldn't dare to and not get punched out or taken too seriously. You can also take tragic human events and turn them into "jokes" to make them more digestible for public consumption. The bad part is that when you try to talk seriously about a subject people don't know if you are kidding. It is the paradox of comedic art.

As an addict I've spent 20 years in an emotional ice age. I didn't know how to feel and avoided feelings I couldn't understand. People who are "normal earthlings" don't sympathize with the breakthroughs of growing emotionally that recovery brings. They can't relate because they have been dealing with their emotions all along. They are quick to be judge, jury and executioner when an addict reaches a seemingly elementary stage of growth in emotional maturity. These people frustrate me when they say "suck it up", "be a man" and other belittling remarks when they have not walked a mile in my shoes. It is as if I were to say to a woman, "Quit bitching about child delivery being so painful, they gave you an epidural!"

It is like the non-addict judging the addict and the man convinced he knows the pain of child delivery. We can not judge another until we have slipped into their sandals for a day. If you saw a man steal a loaf of bread you would call him a thief. If your kid was dying, and you had no other means to feed them, you would steal that loaf of bread in a heartbeat and think of yourself as doing what you had to do to provide for your family. It's all in the sandals my friend.

I have a way of saying exactly the opposite of how I feel. I want to tell my wife how beautiful her new shirt is and some how she ends up going upstairs and changing, thinking I hate it. I am working on that. Sometimes my love comes out as cynicism or coldness. On other days someone who thinks I have no feelings for them thinks I'm a nut job when they find me sobbing to them about how brilliant I think they are. Dealing with reality is new to me. Saying things the right way is foreign to me. Those are my sandals.

When I drove my eldest daughter away from our home through my controlling, overbearing, speed and weed induced behavior at age 18 she fled to Peoria and then lived with my in-laws. There she became inseparable with Dakota, their yellow Lab. She renamed her "Cooter." I loved the name. I loved that she loved her dog so much. I was proud that I had passed my love for animals on to her, as well as the other kids. I hadn't been completely poisonous in my darker days.

When my in-laws were beginning to look for a new home about a year ago, I happily took her into our home. I somehow knew she was going to be our dog in the years she lived with my in-laws. I can't explain it. I just did. When we got her, her health was already failing. She had glaucoma, was half deaf, her hips were going and she had other classic Lab related conditions. She was also approaching 12 years old. That's like 90 in people years for a Lab.

Cooter slept next to my bed and laid by my feet when I wrote my chapters. She was glued to me and loved everyone in the house. She was one of those dogs that just wanted love. Period! With Hemingway in Germany and Cooter deteriorating I was faced with some tough decisions. She is coming home in a few months and I knew she was looking forward to seeing Cooter and being with her partner in crime, the companion who filled a void I created by my selfishness and insensitivity. I prayed that Cooter could hang on through Hemi's trip home.

In the last week or so Cooter stopped eating and separated from the pack. She cried 24/7 and groaned endlessly; pack behavior I am familiar with. Here I sat as the frog again. I knew it was time to let Coot go. By putting her down before my daughter had one last chance to see her, I felt I was being that insensitive prick shitting all over her again. It was about me not wanting to hurt her again, like I always seem to do. Yesterday Cooter was in good spirits for the first time in many days. My plan was to make the appointment with the Vet and do the right thing for Cooter's well being and take the hit from my daughter again. I would tell her after Cooter reached heaven.

Foolishly I posted a picture of Coot on my Facebook page and stated I was letting her go. My daughter saw the post in Germany and went into breakdown. I did it again. I was doing the right thing for Cooter by letting her go. Sometimes getting kicked in the stones by your kids is part of the parent thing. I know Coot wouldn't make it to June and Hemi would be destroyed to see her in such terrible shape.

Sometimes we learn more from our kids than they learn from us. After we talked Hemi understood and was understandably shaken. She didn't hate me. I had the doctor check Cooter out before her exit. She had developed a severe heart murmur and did not have much time left anyway. I had made the right choice. The guilt I have for taking something my daughter loved so much burns. I still feel like when I try to hand her roses there's a thorn there to make her bleed. Those are my issues. She does not make me feel that way. Maybe one day I'll get things right. Probably not! The guilt stuff will take time. I am glad I have a daughter who is brilliant and emotionally balanced unlike her old man.

Coot went peacefully. I know she is better off. Sometimes it sucks playing God, choosing life or death for a pet. The happy times they give us makes that unhappy decision difficult but possible. I would rather have loved Coot and lost her than never to have loved her at all. Hemi, I love you. Coot is with Ruby and my dad is probably saying Ruby is too fat and Coot's breath stinks in Heaven right now.

Angels and Dreamins'.....Near Death Experiences and Visitations! Part Two!

At the risk of sounding like James Frey's confession of adding fictional flare to his semi-non-fictional story of pain and addiction, I have to make a confession that is the opposite of his. It is an admission of holding back facts in my story. To fully understand the following chapter you will have to go back to my chapter "I Was Dead but Didn't Die." My comparison to Frey is that I left a part OUT about my attempted self termination. It was a fact that I didn't think added to my story and I didn't want you to think I was cruel to animals. Nothing could be further from the truth. I now regret the omission, and am eager to share everything. Now that I am writing about my "Near Death" experience and unexplained encounters, not of this dimension, it must be recorded.

There was no thoughts of misleading the reader. I just wasn't prepared to tell the whole story of that night. It was hard enough telling people I was trying to off myself. The omission revolves around my black Lab Fabian. I have had him since my wife rescued him at 6 months old, from the Downers Grove, Illinois Humane Society. He is now 11 and nearing the end of his road. On that haunting date I was going to speed up the trip and take him with me. I should also mention I have 2 other rescue dogs, "Cooter" an 11 year old yellow Lab, and "Grace" a 3 year old Pekingese. An endorsement for adopting animals may sound trite, seeing as I was gonna take myself out, and him with me.

I love my dogs dearly, as I do all animals. Kris and I have no biological children together so our dogs are our adopted proxies. Check that! I hate BATS, all bats big and small, and most snakes! I also despise any spider that I cannot squish with a paper towel victoriously. The most glaring phobia I have is clowns! They're always jumping out of tiny cars with honking horns and miming terribly choreographed slapstick skits in grossly over sized shoes with large painted-on mouths over their existing tiny mouths. What the hell is that? Too much time around them is sure to trigger a panic attack. That said, I am one of the few fathers who can say, with pride, that I never took my kids to the circus! I didn't want to pass on my phobias of the strangely painted creatures, nor create a scene of their father shrieking and running from center ring. That would inflict an equally painful psychological scar upon their young minds. Again, I use humor to deflect heavy feelings I have a hard time addressing in the moment.

Fabian and I have been joined at the hip for years. He knows my moods and tries to lick my wounds when I am hurt inside or out. He is the ultimate companion and I love him dearly. He is truly this man's best friend. He ultimately saved my life and was a part of the unexplainable events that happened that evening in 2004.

When my wife left me on that day after I relapsed and I planned my exodus to the great beyond, I did not leave a bowl of food for Fabian in the house. I did open the windows so the gas from the car exhaust didn't damage the house. Psychotic, I know. My plan was to take Fabian with me. We were going to be friends to the end. I have a small office that connects to my garage and that is where my suicide attempt began. I closed the door of the tiny office and opened the door to the garage where my Dodge Neon was running. I sealed the door to the house with duct tape to keep all the gas in the garage and into my office. I took Fabian into the room with me and we laid down by my CD rack.

After about 45 minutes went by, I began to feel sluggish. My breathing was slowing and it seemed as if things were going in slow motion. It was like I was watching a film. Fabian was laying next to me and I closed my eyes, as his were closed also. His breathing was more beleaguered, less frequent than usual, and very shallow. I knew he was getting close to death and I wasn't far behind.

As I laid next to him my eyes burned and I was unable to sit up. I closed my eyes and soon found myself in a different place. What I saw is hard to describe but I remember it vividly, even though I was being over taken by the carbon monoxide. Although I was sprawled out on the floor, I found myself standing up with Fabian at my left side. There were no white lights. The color for my experience was mostly grey. Describing the physical surroundings is hard to put into words because I have little to compare it to.

Imagine an hour glass each end perfectly symmetrical with a tube in between. Now take a thinly sliced cross-sectioned cut of the hour glass and lay it down flat. I was standing on one side of the hour glass floor and there was a bridge that separated me and Fabian from the other side of another hour glass floor. The whole vision was in white and grey. I could see that Fabian was still black but I could not see myself. I was there but couldn't see my physical being.

There was a presence there that seemed to to be hovering over my shoulder and encapsulating the whole place. It was very peaceful and strong. I was not afraid. There was no conversation in my experience but communication between me, the presence and the others I soon saw was definitely taking place. It was a non-verbal dialogue with a feeling based exchange of information. Fabian stood, happily transfixed at the view across the bridge. The more powerful presence was not encouraging me to do anything or go anywhere. It was just there letting me survey my surroundings.

From my side of the bridge I could see images of what I knew were people. It wasn't like, "oh look it's Grandma and Uncle Jack." I could sense loved ones and saw shapes of auras but there was no definition to the forms. I knew what they were but they were shapes, not outlines of humans, and they had a cloudy illumination to them. I also did not recognize, or feel, all of the auras that filled the background behind those closest to me on the other side. The bridge was slightly curvy and to each side was only grey vapor and nothingness. There was no sense of depth perception but the auras on the other side were seemingly about a 100 yards away.

I was not drawn to the other side and the loving figures did not call for me to join them. They were letting me know they loved me, but that was all. The stronger presence surrounding me gave me the feeling that I had a choice to go to the other side of the bridge or not. It was up to me. There was no pressure either way. It was simply up to me. I was not intimidated or feeling pressure. I was just at a point of decision. I looked down at Fabian and I realized that taking my own life and crossing the bridge was my decision, but that he didn't have a choice. I held the power of his life and death in my hands.

I knew I loved him too much to take his life and taking him from my family was wrong. I didn't reflect on the impact my death would have on my family. I just loved my dog too much to be so cruel to him and doubly cruel to my family. He is laying next to me now as I write this, as is Cooter. I call them  Salt-n-Pepa.

I found myself back on the floor, next to Fabian and the sealed door that went into the family room. He was barely breathing and his tongue was hanging out to the side. I reached up and pulled the door open. Oxygen and clean air rushed in. We both stayed there. The car was still running in the garage. After a few moments he began to somewhat get it together. I crawled into the family room pulling him along. A short time later, he was snapping out of it pretty well and I had the strength to let him outside to get more air.

I didn't fully comprehend what I had just experienced, like I do now. After I knew Fab was okay, I returned to the garage and closed the door behind me to finish the job I had set out to do. Rosary draped on me and Bible in hand, I shut the door from the office to the garage, leaving Fabian behind. You know the rest of the story. It has a happy ending. I am still here.

I now know I was on the edge of death. I know that I was given a choice to cross the bridge or stay behind. My love for Fabian helped me choose to stay here. God had decided to make my decision for me, through him. When I woke up later in the garage the Neon had stalled. I believe in heaven or another plane like I believe in oxygen. No one can veer me from that conviction. I saw what many, and few, have seen. Life's the journey, not the destination. I am glad God made my choice for me. In the condition I was in, I can honestly say that choosing life would not have been my decision, without God and Fabian's intervention.