In Memoriam

It all started Thursday evening. I had just returned from picking up my daughter from Lafayette so she could spend the weekend at home before classes start next week. After a quick stop by the house she left to run some errands. She returned to find our dog, Braddock, bouncing around in the driveway meaning Layla, our other dog, was still on the loose. They had gotten out of an open window in my son's room. He had forgotten it was open and it's covered by curtains and partially obscured by some furniture.

We drove around for 2 hours Thursday night calling for her. Friday I called the pound and my daughter and her boyfriend papered the neighborhood with fliers. Saturday morning someone called me to tell me her friend had seen a boxer get hit by a car on the highway a couple blocks from our house. She said there was another boxer with her that ran off. The coincidences were too close to leave even a sliver of hope that it wasn't our girl. In tears I called my husband and asked him to go look while he was out running errands. It was her.

Braddock is our "main" dog. It's not the right way to put it, but we got him as a puppy and he is the best dog I've ever had. Layla showed up on our doorstep about 5 years ago. According to the vet she was about a year and half old. She had been kept tied up in someone's yard judging by the makeshift slip lead she had on which was attached to rubber tubing attached to a hook. Because of this I'll admit we didn't try really hard to find her owner. My son took to her immediately. She became his dog. Braddock even seemed smitten with her even though he was fixed. She was a great watch dog, very friendly and very energetic and desperate for attention. She was also a runner. We had one memorable run-in with Animal Control that cost us a good bit, and my husband was always getting calls from our neighbors when she managed to scale a fence or find an open window or door. She even managed to get out of a window that was missing one of the small panes of glass even though I never would have thought she could squeeze through an opening so small.

All day Saturday we cried. I cried more for the heartbreak I saw on my children's faces. My son was inconsolable and his grief was matched with anger. My daughter did not stop crying for the rest of her visit. Everywhere were reminders of Layla that triggered a new set of tears. Half the time I didn't know if I was crying for the loss of Layla or because of the heartbreak I had to watch my kids suffer through.

My husband, who claims not to be sentimental (and who also claimed to not like Layla) chose a spot under my sweet olive tree as her final resting place. The big softie is even talking about engraving a stone paver as her headstone.

My eulogy to her is this: She wasn't a bad dog. She wasn't a great dog. She was a silly dog. She was a loyal dog. She was our dog.

Rest in peace Layla. I will always remember you as my son's first true love.

TGIF my ass.

Isn't this a lovely way to start my weekend. Nice visit with my daughter before she starts school again and she gets to spend it looking for our dog that ran away when my pothead son left his bedroom window open. And what's this? I get to meet with the Dean of Students at my son's high school on Monday because he has been caught skipping school AGAIN. What have I done to deserve such a bounty of blessings?

I swear I'm a good person. Anything I've ever done wrong was as a result of wrongs done to me. Somebody has been talking shit to Karma about me behind my back. I'd love to have a sit down with her and find out just what it is she thinks I've done to deserve all of this.

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm losing my mind. I can't take much more of this. Of course every time I say that I break my own personal record for being able to take the shit life throws at me. I just wish I wasn't such an overachiever.

I wish I could just give myself permission to have a nervous breakdown. Some sort of self-preservation instinct keeps me holding on. Make no mistake, I'm white-knuckling it at times and then the feeling subsides to a calm terror just under the surface.

Things had been going well for a few weeks. I had managed to adopt an out of sight out of mind mentality when it comes to my son. Instead of anxiously waiting to hear from him about where he was or when he was coming home I figured that if something went really wrong I'd hear from the police. My husband and I were getting along surprisingly well and managed to keep each other entertained and distracted with other topics of conversation.

Yesterday was a red letter day. My son was sick so I was home with him all day. We talked on the way to the doctor, while waiting in the exam room, at breakfast afterwards and even a little in the afternoon. We talked about his long term goals. We had an open discussion about his relationship with his girlfriend. He admitted that he's even thought it was strange for him to be so certain at his age that this is THE one. It was awesome.

It was a lie.

He's not the sweet little boy he used to be. He claims to have these goals and to have his future figured out. He fooled me into thinking he was going to be OK, but then I catch him with weed and a pipe last night. As I'm standing in his doorway, tears streaming down my face asking him what makes him think it's OK to continue to do stuff that he knows we so strongly disapprove of and to do them right under our noses. He tells me that I'm the one that chooses to get upset over something that, in his words, is "not a big deal". I'm emotionally gutted over that fact that his continued fascination with this lifestyle will ruin his chances to graduate (since he's on the verge of failing already), will cause him to get arrested again or will destroy his chances of ever getting a decent job (since he's pretty much screwed himself out of ever going to college). I am terrified for my child's future and he could care less.

Maybe it is my fault. I had a suspicion that he was up to something last night so I decided to pop in and check on him. His door was locked so I was pretty sure he was hiding something, but a quick check around his room turned up nothing. I went back to bed and tried desperately to let it go, to be one of those parents that turns a blind eye to stuff like this. I couldn't do it. I used the old butter knife trick (assuming he would have locked his door again) and caught him with the contraband. Of course I was overreacting  He wasn't smoking anything; he was just cleaning residue from his pipe.

I want to believe that in a few years I will be remembering this as just the typical difficulties of raising a teenager. I want more than anything for him to be right. I want everything to turn out OK. I want him out of my house just as much as I want him there so I know he's safe. I want a break from my own brain and heart and life. I want a nervous breakdown. I want the men in the white coats to take me away.