The Dog That Helped Me Raise A Family

In 2011, I had three boys — 10, 8 and 4 — and my husband, Dustin, was about to leave for a yearlong deployment. In the middle of the impending chaos, I decided we needed a puppy. Everyone thought I was crazy. Still, I found a brown-and-white Brittany who would be ready two weeks before Dustin left. That Halloween we surprised our boys with a quivering, jumping puppy on their walk home from school.

Lindell, our youngest, named him Sparky, and then promptly wanted the name for himself. No one cared about trick-or-treating. The boys went to sleep in one room, in sleeping bags, with Sparky between them. He was their comfort and mine while their dad was gone.

Last week, those grown boys — now 22, 20 and 15 — carried Sparky when he couldn’t walk, and ultimately, to the car for his final ride. I’m finding it hard to get over. I knew it would be difficult to lose Sparky, but losing Sparky as my kids leave the nest feels especially unfair.

It feels like a metaphor.

It seems like yesterday Little Lindell, with his sticky hands and striped shirts, read books to Sparky for kindergarten homework. He shared the more mundane parts of Sparky’s life for show-and-tell, and Sparky slept next to his bed for more than a decade.

I can still see a pre-teen Ford, empty leash in hand, chasing Sparky down the camp road on one of his unauthorized, multi-mile sprints, and how Ford rescued a bird in our house that Sparky, with his strong hunting instincts, had brought in.

Owen loved the way Sparky leapt four-feet into the back of our vehicle. He cheered like it was the Olympics. And three years ago, when we got another Brittany, “Rocket,” Owen helped Sparky save his bed — the orthopedic one — from being stolen by the puppy.

Back when the kids were small, and my canoe was full, Sparky learned to swim beside it, two-thirds of a mile to our favorite island at the lake and back. I didn’t need to look; I knew he was there, effortlessly gliding through the water, his breathing like a metronome. At the island, he’d disappear for an hour, then return when I whistled. He was often the easiest part of my day — minus the unauthorized runs and the bird.

As the kids grew older, one by one, they came to the island less. It was just me, Lindell and Sparky, and then me and both dogs, alone with the memories of when the island was filled with kids fishing and jumping.

This summer, Sparky started swimming slower. I brought him into my kayak more while Rocket swam beside us. And I guess I knew. It seemed like he knew, too, because he didn’t jump out. Sometimes, Lindell took Sparky across the water in his fishing boat.

In November, Sparky fell down the stairs, and that was the beginning of the end, though he waited until all his boys were home and beside him one Sunday morning. He basically died in my arms — the dog who knew no bounds, who could do anything I asked of him — but the vet helped him take his last breath while I watched in disbelief. I will never forget my grown boys — echoes of those little boys running down the sidewalk 12 years ago — carrying him, still on his bed, to the car.

Lindell turned 16 the day after Sparky died. Soon, the older boys will return to college. During the quiet parts of my day, in an increasingly empty house, I still look for Sparky in his favorite spots. I look for the boys, too, when the sun hits the rug where they used to build Legos. An empty collar and forgotten plastic toys fill my mudroom. I can still hear all the memories.

It’s the end of an era, and Sparky’s passing made that clear. But what a beautiful era it was, and I couldn’t have asked for a better dog to help me raise a family.

The draft for women just became more likely

Reposting from 2015

On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced that the Pentagon will open all military combat roles to women. Finally, women are eligible to do any job a man can do in the military. Young girls, their mothers and women’s rights advocates cheered.

On Friday, the White House announced that given the Secretary of Defense’s decision, it needs to review whether women should now be eligible for (read: forced into) Selective Service, aka “the draft,” as well. A collective, “Wait, what?” was heard throughout social media.

I wrote about women and the draft a couple times this fall, once it occurred to me that my three sons will be forced to register for Selective Service when they turn 18. If they don’t, they face fines, jail time and ineligibility for federal student loans and grant programs. So even though an active draft that forces men into service has not been enacted since the 1970s, the penalties for not registering are very much still in effect today, and they don’t yet apply to women.

Since the draft’s inception, women have not been required to register. The legal basis for this largely rested on the fact that women were not eligible for combat positions anyway. All of that changed overnight with the Pentagon’s decision, which of course created an immediate, new legal problem: now women have access to all the same positions that men do, but under current Selective Service laws, they do not face the same requirements or burdens.

It’s an interesting dilemma for anyone who thinks there is a War on Women, and judging by the feedback I received from my first two columns, many women are not too happy about me, a woman, pointing that out. But we can’t have it both ways. We can’t say that the system is working against us, when all this time, the “system” has partially been saving us from some of the unpleasantness — like Selective Service — of being male. And if we want full equality with men, we have to accept everything it brings.

It’s also an interesting dilemma for anyone who strongly believes in a woman’s right to choose. If the laws regarding Selective Service change to include women, females are about to be forced into the greatest lack-of-choice scenario: the ability to decide whether one wants to join a war and possibly lose one’s life for our country.

However, what considering women in the draft does most prominently is highlight injustices that men have quietly accepted all along. For instance, after my first column ran, a reader replied that not all women are cut out for the military, and just because a few want to be in combat doesn’t mean we all do.

Can’t the same be said about men?

Someone else said that it would be harder to lose the nation’s girls because human reproduction, and therefore the survival of the nation, is more dependent upon them. This might be biologically true, but arguing the point will send many progressives right back to the 1950s. Which side will they be on — the side that states women are in fact different from men, or the side that says we are all equal and women should be forced to die for their country, too?

Also, try telling the mother of a son that her child would be easier to lose.

Some will argue that women need to stay home to take care of babies and raise families, though they won’t want the same argument to apply to civilian work situations.

Some will say that not all women are physically equipped for combat, but they will assume that most men are.

Some will say that we can’t draft both men and women, because what if a husband and wife from the same family are forced into service through the draft? It’s a very real consideration. But at this point in our evolution, how can we automatically assume, through legislation, that it’s the man’s job to go?

Of course, all of this might be for nothing. If we look at the state of today’s millennials, with their micro-aggressions and need for “safe spaces,” I’m not even sure how our government could pull off an active draft — for either gender.

In case it wasn’t clear before or now: I am not in favor of compulsory Selective Service registration for men or women, despite my family’s long tradition of military service. But for years, no one cared to take up this fight. So I look forward to the possibility of women being considered for the draft, if only because of this: Hell hath no fury like women who think they are facing an injustice. While men have accepted Selective Service for generations, we women have proven that, above all else, we like to have choice.

If Introverts Designed Schools

If you are an introvert and you went to school, you know our education system is not designed around you. Indeed, much of the world is not designed for you. The world is for extroverts, and the first time you learn this is your first day of junior high school, when the guidance counselor tells your class there will be “fun” after-school activities throughout the year.

You can’t think of anything less fun.

In fact, if you could design the perfect school, it would look like: 

Cubicles in the lunchroom

The lunchroom would have the usual choose-your-own-adventure — or lunch mates — for extroverts, but it also would have cubicles for people like you. Because, for an introvert, there is nothing worse than that moment when you leave the lunch line, your tray in hand, and realize no one is going to tell you where to sit. You’ll just have to pick the least crazy table and hope the people there will give you some personal space. You also hope no one will think you’re weird for not talking. After a full morning of answering questions in class and working on group projects — the horror — you just need 20 minutes to yourself.

In the introvert’s lunchroom cubicle, you could eat alone, in silence, without curious onlookers hoping someday you’ll come out of your shell. You like your shell, thank you very much, and in order to go back out into the world — or classroom — you need your quiet time there.

Lockers big enough to fit inside

At the introverts’ school, every locker actually would be a portal to your own private den of sorts. Hallways too rowdy and crowded? Step inside your locker and read a few paragraphs of your favorite book until the rush is over. Need to reflect on a comment someone made or a grade you just received? Step inside your locker for some personal reflection.

Also, all the talking and socializing that school necessarily requires is tiring for an introvert. It literally takes everything out of you. Step inside your you-sized locker for a quick nap to recharge your socializing battery.

One-person seats on the bus

Bus rides are a nightmare for most introverts. You’re surrounded by all those extroverts who seem even more energized by their full day of socializing and being at school. You? You need some time to reflect and process, and sitting on a bus is the perfect place to do it — if you could just get some peace and quiet.

Not coincidentally, introverts’ favorite seat on the bus is the random single-person one near the front. If introverts designed school buses, they’d make half the bus with single-person seats, all of them with a window so you can stare at the passing scenery and think about your day.

A posted schedule for answering questions

As an introvert, you live in fear of the next time the teacher will call on you to speak in class. You hardly can learn because of all the brow-wiping you do, wondering if the teacher will call on you next. What if you aren’t ready to talk? What if you’re having a quiet day?

At a school designed by introverts, teachers would have a published schedule for calling on students. No one would be called on without a 24-hour advance notice.

Fewer team sports, more tennis, track and yoga

Physical education introduces many hurdles — pun intended — into an introvert’s life. First, there is the locker room. Need I say more? Then there is the whole picking teams thing. 

Introverts like to participate. They really do. But they don’t need to be vocal about it. You won’t find them jumping up and down after someone picks them for a team. Therefore, they don’t get picked often.

No field trips, or the ability to opt out

Field trips are like the high dive for introverts. At least during a normal school day there is some structure. You go to one class and then another. There is a schedule. The teacher probably — hopefully? — even tells you where to sit in class. And then comes the field trip, which must be an extrovert’s Disneyland.

Not only do field trips usually involve long bus rides (see above), but the extroverts of the world seem to go into hyperdrive over them. It’s like someone fed them too much sugar. They literally are giddy over the idea of an unstructured, semi-spontaneous school day. There is very little personal space — no locker, no desk — and even lunch involves finding a park bench and listening to the overly excited extroverts again.

At an introverts’ school, there would be no field trips or the ability to opt out of them. At the very least, if they’re going to make you go on a field trip, they’re going to have to give you some nap time in your locker afterward.

Learning to Sail and Let Go

We mothers like to hover. Even those of us who preach about not hovering, well, sometimes we still hover. It’s hard to resist at times, despite what we know about letting go.

For me this summer, “letting go” came in the form of watching my older boys learn how to sail. Yes, on the water, in the wind, and with me watching helplessly from the shore. (Oh, I tried to sail with them once, but I immediately tipped the sailboat and was never invited back.)

Early this summer, friends of the family made an offer. They had a Sunfish, a small monohull sailboat, that hadn’t been on the water in a few years, and if our boys were interested, they’d loan it to them for the summer. My boys were definitely interested. The lake we go to has sailboat races every Sunday, and my boys wanted to be part of that. (Spoiler: a Sunfish cannot win against a Hobie Cat.)

The boat had belonged to our friends’ late son who had been a military pilot. He died young while serving in the United States Navy. With that bit of knowledge and history of the boat, my boys committed to racing it, win or lose (it would mostly be “lose”), every Sunday.

There was just one thing: My boys didn’t know how to sail.

So most days with even a hint of a breeze, they were on the water learning how to harness the wind with the Sunfish. I sat on the dock and watched them, all the while thinking about our friends’ son, the owner of the boat, and his mother.

The first time my oldest son raced the Sunfish alone, I trailed behind him in a motorboat. When I say I trailed behind him, I mean that I kept my distance (sort of) but stayed close enough to yell out really unhelpful advice. I just could not stop thinking about everything that could go wrong, and, well, he looked a bit like Truman at the end of the “Truman Show,” and that’s a very powerful ending. When my son eventually tipped the Sunfish, I was glad the motorboat was there to tow him back to shore.

My son felt otherwise: “Why did you trail me? That was the most annoying thing ever! I could have swum to shore!”

The next weekend, someone else from the racing group offered to take one of my sons on his Hobie Cat while the other son sailed the Sunfish with his grandfather. Since my dad had eyes on the Sunfish racer, I was free to hover at the Hobie Cat while the seasoned racer taught my son how to rig the sails. Someday, I know my sons will tell the story of how they learned to sail, and it will always include this generous racer whose voice exudes calm and patience.

But my son gave me a look that day that said, “You can go now,” as I stood awkwardly on the dock and asked whether he’d need a jacket. Finally, I got the picture. My boys are growing up. They don’t need me as much as before.

However, that didn’t stop me from getting on the committee boat, which is the official finish line of the race, and watching everything from there. And that’s when I saw up close how the Sunfish crawls to the finish (think: Spongebob’s “Two … hours … later …”) and the Hobie Cats zip along to the end.

But I also saw something else. My boys, under the instruction of their mentor, were capable and dedicated. They shifted their weight and their sails effortlessly. They tacked and — and, well, they did a bunch of other things that looked really cool but for which I have no eloquent words because I don’t know anything about sailing. And no matter how many hours had passed, if the boys were in the late-pilot’s Sunfish, they were determined to finish the race.

As the summer went on, the boys continued to practice with the Sunfish and they took turns helping race the Hobie Cat. I watched their confidence grow as I let myself relax.

The last sailboat race was this weekend, and there was a party afterward. My sons were some of the youngest participants by many years, and they also had the distinction of losing nearly every race for the entire season. But it never mattered. Those races, that Sunfish, and the older racers who had taken my boys under their, er, sail — it had all been about something more, something bigger. Because of the generosity of others, my boys gained a lifelong skill. But they gained also by learning from those of another generation and honoring the memory of someone who, like them, learned to sail at the lake.

My young sailors are forever better for it, and someday I know they will pay it forward. I’m just glad I finally got out of the way to let it happen.