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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Sorry this is late. I am having computer problems. Word and Outlook keep shutting down and re-opening.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>SallyLoving Laurence: October 2017<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>October 21<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>At first glance, it might appear odd to begin a journal chronicling a year in my life with my guide dog Laurence in late October. However, I have chosen to begin now for a number of reasons. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>First, there is the matter of time to consider. Next month, I will turn sixty-five, a fact that amazes me, not only for the significance of my reaching this milestone having been born three and a half months prematurely, but also because I don’t feel sixty-five emotionally.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A baby-boomer, I have, until now thought of sixty-five as old. As the birthday looms near, I find myself changing my opinion of what being old means. I have a difficult time believing that much more than half of my life is over. I don’t have trouble facing the fact that I will, one day, die; I simply can’t believe that the day is in the not so distant future.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>With more of my life behind me than ahead, I know the time has come when, if I actually am going to write an account of life with Laurence, there is no time like the present. The traditional beginning of a journal year, January, is still a few months away, but I am seizing the October day so as not to procrastinate. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Another reason for picking October is that the month has several emotional pulls on me. My mother, who loved my two former guide dogs, was born on October 13. Although she died several years before Laurence became my canine partner, she would have loved him perhaps even more than she had adored Boise and Greta. Watching her middle-aged disabled daughter, who already had serious residual effects from a stroke in infancy, become blind was not easy for my mother. How could it have been otherwise? Still, she had learned early in life as a young woman surviving bombs and deprivation in wartime England that life wasn’t fair. Living so precariously during World War II, she gained strength and an inner resolve that she passed on to me. She realized, though, that Boise and Greta helped keep me safe and independent. With all the changes that aging brings, my mother would have seen that, now more than ever, her daughter needed a guide dog and that my wise and careful Laurence is as good as they come.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>October is – or was, rather – my favorite month when I could see. The leaves changing color, the riot of orange pumpkins, and the profusion of green and yellow gourds with multi-colored corn piled high in farmers’ markets were sights that never failed to delight me. October also holds bittersweet memories. The winding down of the year from cool and beautiful autumn to the stark barren and snowy landscapes of winter mesh with many personal losses of this period.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>My father, dying from kidney cancer, entered hospice care three months before passing away on New Year’s Day in 2000. Outliving him by eight years, my mother spent the last few months of her life in a less than caring nursing home two hours away from me in the small town in which my brother and his family lived. Strained family relationships made communication or empathy difficult between my brother’s family and me, but my polio survivor husband Sandy, his service dog Pumpkin, my guide dog Greta, and I made the journey often to sit with my mother and bring her much-needed human and canine company before she died in January 2008.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Watching both parents decline and die during the holiday season made Thanksgiving and Christmas sad in the years ahead. Their deaths brought me closer to my own and make this season an especially reflective one. What better time to look closely at my life and examine the ongoing changes and challenges? So, while Laurence leads me literally through the year ahead, I hope my reflections and discoveries will lead me – and you who are reading this book -- to new insights and perspectives.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>October 26 <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>While Laurence, as most guide dogs do for their handlers, certainly acts as an icebreaker in social situations, blindness can still be problematic while involved in activities with others. Take church for example. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act does not cover houses of worship, Sandy and I have always found a warm welcome for our dogs in the Lutheran church we attend.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>For many years, we went to the Saturday evening service since Sandy’s need for home health care every morning precluded our going to any of the Sunday services. So, when budget cuts and a smaller staff meant discontinuing the Saturday service, we felt desolate. Fortunately, so did some other church members who had attended the small, closely-knit Saturday worship.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>With the pastors’ approvals, we decided to continue as a lay-led service. Following a set scripture weekly, we each decided what we would do to participate. One member played guitar and led us in song; another gave the sermon. I was hard-pressed to come up with a way Sandy and I could take part. Given illness, wheelchair and van malfunctions, and providing what care we could to Sandy’s elderly parents who spent a fair amount of time in the emergency room or hospital, we weren’t able to attend regularly. I was a decent public speaker but didn’t trust myself without notes which I could no longer read. Several attempts to learn Braille left me frustrated because of spatial deficits from my stroke which left me with no alternative but print notes in such situations. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I have usually taken non-perishable food items to the church’s food cupboard, and the idea came to me of how Sandy and I – and even Laurence and Pumpkin – could take part. At each service, we now have our “Change the world with your change” jar. Individuals put pocket change or paper money into the jar on a voluntary basis, and we go grocery shopping for bargains for the food cupboard. By taking advantage of in-store specials on staples such as cereal, peanut butter, soup, beans, rice, coffee, and tea bags, we can often stretch an average collection of $25 into three or four bags of groceries. This way of participating makes us feel like productive members, gives Laurence and Pumpkin chances to do their respective work in a supermarket, and allows others to actually see what their small amounts of money can do to help people in need.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Would I have devised this food cupboard plan had I been sighted? Perhaps. It is more likely that I would have taken part in a spoken section. Being blind can often leave me feeling not included, but I have found, with a little ingenuity, it is often simple to take my place in the circle of participants. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>October 30<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>As much as I enjoy being out in public with Laurence, some days it takes effort to work a sixty-six pound dog. Even Laurence, trained by Guiding Eyes for the Blind’s special needs program to accommodate my physical disabilities as well as blindness, requires upper and lower body strength, a sharp mind, and an attitude of teamwork. Lymphedema and profound genetic age-related hearing loss now make working a guide dog more challenging, but Laurence was trained with my needs in mind and has, in our more than two years together, come to anticipate my weaknesses and work around and with them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Today, while in a store, Laurence and I took a break while my husband went in search of something he needed. While we waited, a woman stopped near to us and said, “What a beautiful and intelligent dog!” We guide dog handlers hear similar remarks from the public frequently, so I gave my standard reply of “Thank you. He knows it.” While I usually garner a laugh from people since Laurence, a fit and sleek black Labrador retriever with a serious demeanor in harness is a handsome and kind dog, the woman who had approached us didn’t laugh. She immediately moved closer and confided, “My golden retriever died yesterday.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We talked a while about her dog and her grief. When she turned to walk away, I wished her well. Believe it or not, our conversation was not unusual. I have been the recipient of similar tales of loss while out with Laurence. For a long time, I thought the confidences arose from people’s ability to strike up a conversation about Laurence and continue it with me about their grief. Today, however, another thought occurred to me. I have no idea what my grieving woman looks like. There will never come a time Laurence and I will pass her on the street or in a mall and recognize her. Our eyes will never meet before she turns away, blushing at the memory of our conversation. She will always remain anonymous to me, so she can share her grief knowing the brief interlude will be our only encounter. Yet, it is an encounter that cleanses her heart and gives me a sense of worthiness for Laurence and myself. Even on a low-energy day, there is important work we can do as a team. I bend over to kiss his broad Labrador head and whisper that he just did work worthy of all his training. He responds by leaning into me for more petting. While Sandy’s service dog Pumpkin is extremely outgoing, Laurence is more reserved and serious. Whatever he does, I have come to recognize, he does with purpose. As I stroke his ears, he wags his tail, not merely for my display of affection, but also for the part he played in lessening the departed woman’s pain. Many would call this anthropomorphizing Laurence’s actions, but I am attuned to him and know what he did. He is intuitive and caring – an old soul in a canine body.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>