Drinking from the Trough

by Mary E. Carlson, DVM

  The next morning, I stood beside the dog pen Tipper and Keli had so loved. I remembered the currency in the dog feces, the horrible screech of the juvenile raccoons, the splash Keli made in the fishpond, the way the dogs frolicked with Marcie across the fence shared by the dog pen and the corral. This was the right place for them now.

  I opened Keli’s box and pulled out the plastic bag. I poured her ashes in a slow stream onto the ground of the dog pen. There was no wind; the ashes went straight down. I opened Tipper’s box and repeated the procedure for her ashes. Still no wind. I tried to scatter a few ashes, but tossing them didn’t work, so I went back to pouring. I sprinkled some into Tipper and Keli’s husky holes, those spots they’d dug out for the comfort and luxury of sleeping in the snow. There were enough ashes to make a thin layer over everything.

  When I was done, I put the boxes and bags in the trash and retrieved the smaller box. Alexander would not appreciate being mixed in with husky ashes, so I carried his box to the orchard. I poured a few of his ashes on Pruney’s grave and the rest on Fletcher’s. Pruney had been a solitary cat; Fletcher and Alexander had been buddies, so it felt right that most of Alexander’s cremains would rest with Fletcher.

  Mission accomplished: I felt reasonably confident that I could scatter Earl’s ashes without making a mess of things.

  There was still the question of exactly where in Wyoming. I tried to think like Earl. I have never met anyone as passionate about the University of Wyoming as my husband; he was even more devoted to that fine school than his father, and his father had been president of the university. Earl was a fanatic! His enthusiasm for UW and the Cowboys was obvious every day—most of his clothing was from UW.

  I decided to take a chance. I called UW’s sports information director, who’d been good friends with Earl. Would it be possible for me to scatter Earl’s ashes on or near the football field at War Memorial Stadium? I expected him to say no; no one was allowed on that field, especially, I thought, if she wanted to scatter ashes.

  Much to my amazement, Kevin said yes, he would arrange it.

  Then I called two of Earl’s friends, a UW professor named Dave and Sid, Earl’s friend from high school. Both were enthusiastic about joining Kevin and me at the stadium.

  I felt better than I had in weeks. I knew Earl would have been proud of me for coming up with such a unique plan for his ashes, and I was delighted that I’d connected with these dear friends of his.

  The night before driving up to Laramie, I went to the barn to retrieve the cobalt-blue bag that held the box containing Earl’s ashes. As usual, Tux was sleeping alongside. I nodded at him and said, “You’ll have to be on your own again.” I picked up the bundle, brushed the hay off it, and carried it back into the house.

  That night, the blue bundle rested on the antique oak chair in the family room. I sat on the sofa beside it, surrounded by our three cats, watching TV.

  Earl and I had had a mixed marriage—not Jewish and Christian but Mercedes and BMW. I bought my Mercedes Benz SLK 320 in 2004, six weeks before I fractured my hip. It was an award-winning show car in its early days, turned into my rehab car, and then became a parade car to chauffeur dignitaries. It was still my favorite car for the Fort Collins to Laramie drive. My man deserved the best, including zipping along that gorgeous stretch of 287 in a compact luxury roadster.

  Of course, I’d have to slow down to pokey-old-lady speed once we crossed the state line into Wyoming. Wyoming State Patrol loved to nab speeders who had Colorado license plates, and one of their favorite hiding places was behind the “Welcome to Wyoming, Forever West” sign at the border.

  Earl had talked his way out of more than one Wyoming patrol encounter. Once when we were homeward bound after a vacation road trip to South Dakota, he was cruising well above the speed limit. Wyoming’s finest pulled him over.

  Because Earl was wearing his Wyoming cap, he and the officer began a long conversation about UW. It felt like old home week out on the prairie south of Gillette. The officer remembered Earl’s dad as UW president and, eventually, let Earl go without a ticket. After that, I always kept a Wyoming cap in my car—and added caps for every state I knew I’d be driving through on any trip. Safety ritual, good luck charm, or silly superstition to avoid a speeding ticket—I didn’t care. It had worked for Earl, and maybe it would work for me too.

  This morning, just to be extra safe, I was wearing my favorite UW attire, a brown-and-gold T-shirt with “Cowboy Nation” emblazoned across the chest.

  We made it to Laramie without incident. I picked up Sid at her house, and after stopping at a local florist to buy lilies (yellow with brown spots, because UW’s colors are brown and gold), we rendezvoused with Kevin and Dave at the north parking lot of the stadium.

  I opened the blue bag and slid the box partway out. The return on cremains is about one pound of ashes for every ten pounds of original weight. Earl normally weighed about 150 pounds, but by the time he died, I doubt he weighed more than 120. That meant I had about twelve pounds of ashes to disperse.

  I started scattering ashes at the north entrance outside of War Memorial Stadium. I thought that’s all I’d be allowed to do.

  But Kevin invited me onto the field.

  “Oh . . . really?” I stammered, fighting off tears.

  Kevin smiled, and we followed him through the gate. “You know, I wish Earl had called me more often for tickets,” he said. Earl asked only occasionally, he explained, but he would have given him anything he wanted.

  That’s my Earl, I thought, not wanting to take advantage of some-one’s generosity. I was a little sad that he hadn’t asked more often but grateful for Kevin’s kind story about Earl.

  Now that I was on the field, I placed some of the lilies on a statue called “Cowboy Tough.” I realized how sheltered our spot near the entrance had been. The wind was blowing hard; there was nothing to get in its way. If I poured the ashes the same way I’d practiced, I’d end up coating our friends. I held the plastic bag close to the ground in the end zone and shook it carefully. Most landed on the ground, but I still managed to get some on Dave’s pant legs.

  Kevin suggested that I use the whole field. I didn’t have to stay in one small spot, which would be better visually too. The field was a mixture of grass and synthetic grass, with crumbled rubber as the turf base. It was never vacuumed, groomed, or mowed much, which meant the cremains would pretty much stay where I put them. Spreading them out over the whole field would make them less noticeable.

  I decided that twelve pounds wasn’t much to scatter on the entire field, so I kept to the end zones and the fifty-yard line.

  I finished the north end zone and walked to the image of the dark brown bucking bronco at the fifty-yard line. I bent low and scattered—or more accurately poured—a little heavier than I should have. Whoops! The white ashes made a striking—and extremely visible—contrast with the dark brown. I finally got the hang of it, scattering low and wide.

  Finally, the south end zone. Sid held up a bone spicule and asked if she could have it. I said no, but she was welcome to take the blue bag and box and to use anything left in them for her flowerbed.

  I straightened up, holding the bag with a few remaining ashes that I’d saved to put around Bill’s memorial bench, a way of honoring Earl and his father’s strong relationship with each other.

  I gazed across the expanse of the football field, trying to memorize everything—and realized I’d left my camera in the car. “Would you mind if I ran back to the car?” I asked these three dear friends who had already spent so much of their day with me. “I’ll try to be quick.”

  They graciously insisted that I retrieve my camera, and I took off at a run.

  Technically, I wasn’t supposed to run; the surgeon who’d replaced my hip had forbidden it. After my hip fracture and replacement, I’d fantasized about running the length of an athletic field on a warm, sunny day under a deep blue sky. And here I was, doing just that. I felt like Scarlett O’Hara fi
nally realizing what her nightmare of running through the fog really meant in Gone with the Wind.

  I took photos of the entire field and Bill’s bench. Sid, Kevin, Dave, and I took pictures of each other. After I’d scattered the last of the ashes around the bench, Sid and I sat on it with the leftover lilies and posed for more photos.

  Earl was now forever part of the University of Wyoming. Surrounded by the love and companionship of these good friends, comforted by their patience and gentleness, I felt the first step toward closure.

  The four of us finally made our way back to our cars.

  There was still the house to empty, horses to send to Arizona where my sister would care for them while I was in school, and the move to Texas itself—but all of that would come later. Today, I had taken care of my husband with joy and a peace of mind I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  Suddenly, I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten much since Earl had died, but now I was ready for a solid meal. Sid and I drove the Benz to the Village Inn for lunch. Afterward, I dropped her off at her house, hugged her goodbye, and watched as she carried the box and cobalt-blue bag through her front door.

  I tugged my UW cap firmly into place and headed for 287.

  Epilogue

  As I sit at my desk writing these words, there’s a leash wrapped around my foot. The other end is attached to the cutest puppy born in the twenty-first century.

  She’s a goldendoodle, a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle. Her curly coat is parti-colored, a mix of white, tan, sable, and gray. Her eyes are olive green, framed by four-inch-long eyelashes.

  I named her Ivy in honor of my beloved Chicago Cubs. The outfield walls of Wrigley Field are covered in ivy, and in 2016, when my pup was seven weeks old, the Cubs won the World Series. Those two events—the World Series game and Ivy’s arrival—plus the Denver Bronco’s Super Bowl win earlier that year, were bursts of sunshine in what had been a long stretch of darkness.

  Since Earl’s death, I’d struggled with depression. Grief was part of it, of course, combined with the multitude of transitions that follow such life-changing events. Therapy, grief-recovery retreats, and good friends all helped, but it wasn’t until the previous summer, over six years after scattering Earl’s ashes on the UW football field, that I had finally started to enjoy life again. A year after that, I was ready for a puppy.

  It had been twenty years since I’d had a puppy. I’d been dogless since Tipper died, and I decided it was finally time. My first thought was for a Siberian husky; I love the breed and had fond memories of the years with Tipper and Keli.

  But I was older now, with orthopedic issues. Realistically, I couldn’t provide for a husky’s needs. I began looking for alternatives, with the idea that my future puppy would also serve as a therapy dog to help others.

  My search led me to Ivy, and I brought her home just a week after the Cubs’ winning game.

  Ivy’s a “Velcro” dog: she sticks to me everywhere I go. That’s a new experience for me.

  Huskies are loving dogs; they’re also happily independent and incredibly stubborn. Put a husky in its pen, and it will say, “See ya, whatever.” Not Ivy; she goes outside to do her business, then comes inside to be with her human. She can be ornery, but she’s not stubborn. We’ve been through puppy kindergarten and puppy obedience training already, and unlike Tipper or Keli, Ivy actually comes with boundless enthusiasm when I call her. She finished her Canine Good Citizen class and passed the AKC test too.

  She’s the only dog I’ve ever allowed on the furniture; she doesn’t shed, another big difference between goldendoodles and huskies. I sit in my recliner, Ivy snuggled in my lap, and brush her soft, curly coat.

  Occasionally, someone will criticize me for getting a “designer dog” or a “specialty puppy” instead of a rescue dog. I’ve rescued plenty of critters in my time, including the cats who still live with me, so I don’t have any guilt on that score. Besides, the heart wants what the heart wants; Ivy wanted me, and I wanted her.

  Ivy’s growing fast, and when she’s a little older, we’ll begin her therapy dog training. In the meantime, we’re happy to revel in the ridiculousness of puppyhood. All the time-consuming, love-filled moments with her have sealed the deal for me: everything is going to be okay.

  Ivy romps through the house, closely watched by her feline brothers, the cats. I follow her antics and realize I’m giggling once more.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank all the animals and people who helped this book become a reality.

  Thanks to Judy Fort Brenneman, writing coach and editor extraordinaire, who has been patient, kind, and enthusiastic about my work. Thanks, too, to Mary Jo Morgan for helping me with social media, blog posting, and sorting out my website and to Rebekah Robson-May for saving my sanity where technology was concerned. Your encouragement and clear instructions prevented the need for a straightjacket.

  I truly believe that what we do as writers is a gift. My mother, Carol Lederer Elson, was a talented writer herself who worked in radio before her marriage. Her gift to me was a love of words and of reading, and a prodigious vocabulary. She left us too soon, at age fifty-six, when I was twenty-six. She was my advisor, life coach, and best friend, and I loved her dearly. May her memory be a blessing.

  Thanks to my husband of twenty-seven years, Earl Carlson, for your love, your bravery in all things, and your mantra, “Get it done and move on.” I know you and Mom are here in spirit and are proud of me.

  Thanks to Anna Fails, DVM, PhD, for jogging my memory about freshman year adventures, especially the watch alarm story.

  Thanks to the Purple Cup Cafe in Fort Collins, Colorado, for tasty treats and a quiet corner to work in.

  I thank my Edgewood School seventh grade teachers, Mrs. Lee Erickson and Mr. Larry Uramkin. Mrs. Erickson, my homeroom teacher, taught vocabulary reading, or VR. Mr. Uramkin taught typing, where I got my first D ever—remember those old-fashioned manual typewriters? My hands were too small to type on them! I type much better now than when I was eleven.

  Thanks to all the teachers I had at Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Illinois too. They gave me a fine public education by making me rise to the highest levels in reading, writing, and Latin.

  And, of course, thanks to the cats, horses, and dogs, past and present, who have filled my life with stories and love.

  About the Author

  Mary Carlson, DVM, MA, CVA, has been a physical education and science teacher, a community volunteer and school board member, a lecturer in anatomy at the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, a guest researcher studying Yersinia pestis (plague) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a veterinarian specializing in cats through her feline-exclusive practice. She is internationally certified in veterinary acupuncture. Mary is a rabid Chicago Cubs fan, avid horsewoman, enthusiastic dog owner, and, according to her cats, excellent support staff. She is active on Facebook and channels her love of and experience in veterinary medicine through her blog (https://marycarlsondvm.com/). She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado and Tucson, Arizona. Her work has appeared in both professional and lay publications. Drinking from the Trough is her first book.

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