I think I'll do NaNoWriMo again this year. If you'd like to join me, just click on the link in my sidebar to register.
Scout chose me as his own when he was just a baby. He attached himself to me with no uncertainty about it. My lap belonged to him ONLY. If I were going to give any of the other dogs any particular attention, I had to give him his attention first. 
He was usually up for a game of tug of war with a stick. All it took was for me to say, "Gimme that thing!", (with nothing in my hand) and he'd start looking around for something to run and get before I could. That's how the game started. So I'd make sure there was a stick or toy handy; he'd run to get it, and then he'd tease me with it. I'd tug, and he'd tug. Finally he'd let go; I'd throw it, and say, "Gimme that thing!" And we'd do the whole thing over again.
He was born with a naturally cropped tail. But he was also born with a hip and/or spine deformity. He was a very fast runner (almost as fast as his mother and sister) until he was about 4 years old. Then he started slowing down a bit. He was still pretty fast, though. And as long as he didn't get cold, his hip/back didn't seem to bother him. As long as he got regular exercise, he didn't seem stiff. But if the weather was bad, and he hadn't been for a good walk or run for a day or two, then he'd be a bit stiff for a while. Since I was also born with a bad spine and hips, I always thought it was appropriate that he was my dog. He started getting a lot of gray hair a year or two ago. It happened very quickly; something else the two of us had in common. 
This morning I made my coffee much stronger than I usually do (not on purpose), and I have been bouncing around my house doing housework for over four hours now!!! I chattered like a squirrel to Thomas when he got up too. NOT like me, first thing in the morning, I can assure you. I'm wondering how the crash will be -- and this is only one cup of coffee...not even a mug...a cup!!
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Letting Go of Prejudices
Weekend Assignment #64: Tell about a moment with your dad that serves as an example of one of his best qualities.
I have been wrestling with this assignment. I knew what I wanted to write, but not how to go about doing it. Today I know....
I am white and my husband is black. When I met, became friends with, fell in love with and knew I would marry my future husband I knew that my father would have a hard time with it. I had never dated anyone of another race, never even been interested in anyone of another race, although I had had friends of color. When I met Thomas what attracted me to him was him, and it had nothing to do with color or features. I knew in my heart -- no, in my soul -- that if my dad gave Thomas a chance he would see what I saw. And I knew them both well enough to know that they had so much in common that they would become friends. But how to convince my Dad of that? I knew I couldn't. He would have to find that out for himself.
The moment I would describe in answer to the above question was a Sunday night, several months before my wedding, when I sat on the floor at my father's feet and he and I talked together about me, about Thomas, about my beliefs and my father's beliefs, about love and friendship and so many other things.
I told my dad that when he decided to give Thomas a chance he would have a son-in-law who would show him the respect in word and in action that my father deserved to have from him. He would have a friend with whom he could fish and hunt and talk about things that had a place in my father's heart and about which his other sons-in-law could not converse with him. I knew this. In return my father told me about how he was raised, the culture and environment that had taught him that it was wrong and immoral to marry outside of your race. He told me about how his mother had been raised to be scared of black people and why. And he told me that if he was left alone to come to terms with it on his own that in his own time he would probably come to feel the way I predicted he would. But he didn't want anyone to push him.
I watched my father progress from listening to other people's good opinions about Thomas..., to deciding to give him a chance..., to becoming best friends with him! They talked and laughed together. My husband listened respectfully while my dad gave him advice on something or showed him how to do something (usually something Thomas already knew, but he listened anyway). They went fishing together, shared hunting stories, worked on family vehicles, did home repairs. Thomas listened to stories about being in the Navy during World War II, about growing up in Kentucky during the Great Depression. I listened with pride as my father called Thomas his "other son", his "favorite son-in-law", his "friend". When our son was born two years after we were married, the 10th of my parents' grandchildren, I saw my father with the grandson of his old age, and saw how much they loved one another. When our daughter was born six years later I saw the granddaughter of his heart. I heard with my own ears my father say to my husband, "I love you, Thomas. You're like a son to me." And he thanked me and my husband for giving him those two grandchildren. And two weeks before he died, when he knew the end was near but could still somewhat enjoy the time he had left, he took Thomas into his confidence and told him things that he probably wouldn't have been comfortable telling me, my mother or my sisters or brother. Thomas has said that my father was more of a father to him than his own father, and that he loved him more.
The moment that I shared with my dad that described one of his best qualities happened on that Sunday night in 1986. It was the moment he told me to give him time, that he'd come around. It was a moment that stretched throughout my marriage until his death in 2002 at the age of 80. I don't know if the quality has a name. Perhaps you would call it depth of character. His was deeper than even he knew. He had the depth of character to realize that perhaps the way he'd been taught and raised wasn't the way he really felt about things; the depth of character to get to know a man on the inside, to know that secret person of the heart. And in return for displaying that depth of character he gained a best friend in Thomas and two adoring, loving, smart grandchildren that helped to fill his last years on Earth with happiness and completeness.
My father has been gone for three years now, {at time of writing} but he is still with us. My husband and I will celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary tomorrow, June 20. You can bet that my father will be in our thoughts as we wish each other a happy anniversary.
Me with my Dad, Jeff Dowell, around 1972.
First of all, I should mention that I lost an aunt last month. She was married to my father's brother, Burton, and she was also my mother's first cousin. She was 89 when she passed away. She had battled Parkinson's disease for many years, but only in the past few had she been unable to live on her own. Recently she developed some heart problems, and that is what finally took her.
d rather think of them as the last two Dowell Brides still living. Here is Aunt Rita with Uncle Coleman as a young couple.
d her only sister Elnora (known as Noni) when they were young knock-outs. (Aunt Noni was also married to one of my father's brothers, James, and she died back in the mid nineties.)
ernal grand-mother, Iva Myrtle Roberts, nee Hook. I'm not sure when this was taken. She died in 1964, so I never knew her. She is holding a bouquet of roses from her own big rose bush.
Elijah Hook, the lady sitting (my maternal grandmother is the little girl standing in the center). The second picture is my mother, Eler Frances Roberts Dowell; she and my father are holding their first five great-grandchildren, 1996. (My mother was n
amed after both of her grandmothers, just as Eler Beth is named after both of hers. But I don't have a picture of my great-grandmother Frances "Frankie".)
o a pretty young lady.
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.
Have a great week everyone!!
31 Days of The Monkees:
