My Partner In Success

This post started two nights ago and was originally named, "My Partner In Crime." It was supposed to introduce you to my youngest son, Daron, but it went on and on about me (my favorite subject) and by the time it was twice as long as I intended it to be and still not substantially about Daron, I pressed the draft button and decided to sleep on it.

And I'm glad I did, because Daron gave me the best story to illustrate our love and our need for each other's influence. It's not about crime at all. It's about the best life I could be leading.

SIDE NOTE: I have three sons, Chuck (31), Steve (28) and Daron (12). I also have a step-daughter, Candice, in Nebraska who will be 26 this month. Chuck is father to Sebastian (10) and Candice has Lily (6) and Harrison (16 months). I love all my little babies and they are wonderful and special, each in their own way. The reason that the spotlight is on Daron is because he is the only one at home with me.

Daron came to me later in life, at a very inconvenient time and with the wrong man. Not a fairytale, for sure, but besides being pro-animal rights, I am also pro-life. I might add that particular belief system was also inconvenient and I struggled. Daron has been keeping me honest and forcing me to walk the walk rather than just talk the talk before he was even born. Sometimes we do not plan our greatest blessings. We need only to ACCEPT that the universe knows what it's doing and embrace our destiny.

Daron and I have had our struggles over the years, but one thing I remember hearing about child rearing that I always hung onto was that you should raise a child in the way he should go and when he was old he would not depart from it. (Yeah, that's from the Suzy paraphrased Bible, one of those nifty Proverbs!) Religious types have sometimes misinterpreted this wisdom, I think, but I was very fortunate because I heard that the operative phrase in that sentence was "in the way HE should go," meaning that every child is unique and every child will be different. If you want to raise a good human, respectful of God and man, you better understand his unique purpose and desires. For Chuck, it was drama and cooking. For Steve, it was music.

For my sweet little Daron it was always animals. He has loved animals ever since he was old enough to grab a kitty's tail and shove it in his little mouth. In the picture, we see him lying with Daria, my crazy cat. When the premature little Daron came home from the hospital, everyone said I would have to get rid of my kitties. He was so small ... maybe it would be true, maybe he would be allergic or they would be jealous. But Daria, no, she wasn't jealous (except maybe of me). Daria adopted Daron as her own kitten. She lactated! And every day she would lay with him and groom him and lick all of his little red fuzz into place. All that scrubbing with her rough tongue prevented him from ever having cradle cap.

I could tell you hundreds of stories about his hamsters and guppies and neighbors' dogs who didn't usually like children and all of that. I could tell you how we currently have 9 pets. I could tell you stories about Marilyn the cow and how she made him reach deep inside himself to find bravery to match his compassion. I could tell you how he changed, how he went from 11 years old to 40 overnight -- IN A GOOD WAY -- after he started volunteering with animals and found his thing. How very fortunate to know your thing when you are still in elementary school. It's my thinking that this will save him an awful lot of grief.

But what happened yesterday really illustrates the bond we have with each other and why I need him every bit as much as he needs me.

I had just picked him up from school and turned down a street I don't usually drive down. About a block down, there was a fuzzy orange dog, a Chow mix, sort of looming on the sidewalk. I just assumed the dog was a stray and, really, what could be done? Daron immediately spotted the dog and was worried. Here I am, animal lover and advocate, but I really don't want to bother with the dog. I pull an old story out of my hat about "scaring" the dog, but Daron doesn't buy it. Nope, he wants me to pull over and see why this dog is just standing there.

At this point, I realize the dog is seriously hurt. He tries to walk away from my truck and his entire back end is being dragged behind him. I don't know what to do. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! I do know I have stuff to do and I really don't want to spend the time DOING THE RIGHT THING but what do you do when your 12 year old is watching? So I get out of the truck and I try to approach the dog. I can see he is wearing a collar and has tags ... perhaps he'll let me call his owner? He is too scared and in too much pain and he starts barking and retreating, so I get back in the truck. I don't want to get mauled by a Chow.

Daron is panicking. He HAS to help the dog, it's in his very nature, but he's only 12, he needs ME to do something. He needs me to have the answer. So I call Animal Control. It took about four tries to get someone on the phone, but they say they'll send someone out. Now the dog is crawling up the street. I want to leave, but I can't leave. What if Animal Control doesn't come? What if they come and they can't find the dog? Finally, poor little guy, he climbs into some bushes and he lays down. I'm not sure you can see him clearly from the street, but I know he's safe there. We wait and we wait and we wait some more. I start texting people. "How long does it take for Animal Control to come get an injured animal?" No one really knows. It's been 45 minutes. So I decide to call again, just get an ETA. And this is when it goes terribly wrong. Since the dog has moved, I want to update them on the location. I ask Daron to check the address and he gets out of the truck. He's watching the dog instead of watching what he's doing and that's how his finger got slammed in the door.

It's funny, he's gotten a lot of press on being a "hero," injured in the line of duty while trying to save a dog. His most heroic part in this is pushing his mommy into behaving correctly, never letting me give up or get tired. I'm sure the dog is grateful, too!

After a couple minutes I can tell his finger is more than just mashed and I need to take him to urgent care. Animal Control swears they will be there in 15 minutes and I have given a really detailed account of where the dog is, what he looks like and how he's acting. Then I tell them I have to leave because my son got hurt. The silence on the line tells me they think the dog must have hurt him. No, see, that's why Daron needs me, too! He needs me to drive the truck. He needs me to provide the cell phone. And he needs me to tell him that a hurt dog might be dangerous and to stay in the truck! We are a team!

Now I have another moral dilemma. I have come this far, but what do you choose? The hurt animal that has no one watching out for it? Or the hurt child, who is your own flesh and blood, I might add? Okay, another wail out of Daron to help me collect my thoughts, and we are on the road to the hospital. Turns out, he had a clean fracture on his right index finger. Come back tomorrow morning for evaluation in orthopedics.

I don't want to cook. It's been a long, dramatic day. But first we call Animal Control. I practically have them on speed dial by now and, I kid you not, they recognize my voice. "Oh, the dog on Variel? Yes, we picked him up and were able to reunite him with his owner." Thank goodness!

We decided on Follow Your Heart for baked potatoes and cheesecake. Total comfort food! Notice that there is an "S" on the cheesecake for "Super Daron" and that he is not really that good with eating with his left hand just yet. I am checking Facebook from my phone and Daron was really pleased at all the well wishes from near and far. He wanted to know if I thought he was really a hero, since that term had been thrown around a few times by then. He reasoned that his injury was more from clumsiness than heroics.

Just like Stan in a South Park episode, I want to tell you that "I learned something today."

I learned that when I say, "Someone should do something for that dog," or "Someone should help that man," or "Someone should fix that," what I should be saying is, "I should do something." I say this because my first (and probably second, third, fourth and fifth) reaction was that "someone" would help this dog (besides us). We sat there for almost an hour before we left and not one person looked at that dog besides us. I mean, they didn't even look and then look away, hoping, like me, that "someone" would do something for that dog. He was just invisible to the world. So if Daron hadn't pestered me to turn around and do the right thing, I can't be sure that anyone would have done the right thing. If not me, who?

And so I learned that Daron is doing a fine job of raising me. He needs me to be a mom and take care of him and teach him what the right thing is, but MORE he needs to see me do it, so he knows how it looks. And I need him because sometimes I am not as good of a person on the inside as I try to pretend to be on the outside. I need to be reminded to do the right thing, because it is the right thing, and even knowing that probably no good deed goes unpunished!

I am so pleased we have each other, me and my partner in success!

Love to you,
Suzy