Shadow of Love

Love is the word to describe him.  He was a special black lab named “Shadow of Love.” My parents rescued him in 1991, when he was one and a half.  His previous owners kept him in their garage and gave him plastic bottles to play with. But when we brought him home, Shadow did not look back. He knew we were his family.

Shadow had to adjust to living in a house with people.

Once we were having a nice family dinner and Shadow jumped onto the kitchen table and tried to eat our birds, Blaine & Antoine!  One night while we were all sleeping, Antoine somehow got out of the cage and Shadow slimed him to death.  Poor thing!

When he first took a look at me in my wheelchair, he didn’t know what to do. But little by little he got used to me. This dog was not dumb.  He even learned to respond to my DeltaTalker.  Whenever I would say, “Shadow, come!” he would do just that.

 

He really hated a neighbor’s cat called Little Bittles.  Once I was talking about the Beatles and he thought I was saying Bittles.  He charged at our glass door!

Even though we had him “fixed” Shadow kept getting into fights.  The fight with the pit bull put his leg in a cast.  His ear was almost torn off in another fight.

God, he had the weirdest appetite.  He was a retriever, so of course he always had something in his mouth.  Also he was interested in my technology.  He chewed up my DeltaTalker cables! Not to mention, my braces for my feet. He even chewed up the tie downs in my van so my wheelchair started to tip.  He was getting out of control!  My dad decided he needed help.  He worked and worked with him so he could become “normal.”

That did not quite happen.  There was some question about his sexuality.  You might say that he wanted my dad to have his puppies.  During my high school graduation party, my male teacher, my sister’s boy friend, and my dad were all standing against our kitchen counter when Shadow decided to hump all three men!  They were all laughing!

Shadow loved going out with Dad.  He took him everywhere, even to the supermarket.  He loved going to the Cal campus and jumping over the creek.  His favorite thing was playing in Willard Park and he trained Dad to give him water from the fountain.  Once dad couldn’t find him and someone told him Shadow was in Willard swimming pool, doing laps!

 

Everyone thought he was something special, so we kept a list of words people called him, such as “handsome, muscular, smiling…”. This was our list of “shadjectives.”

When Shadow was about to turn 13, our cousin Benny decided that Shadow should have a Bark Mitzvah.  He didn’t learn the Torah, but we had a nice lunch at the Bateau Ivre.

Over the years he started losing his hearing and had poblems walking. I now had my own apartment, and every time I saw him, he seemed older. My parents tried different things until one day, he couldn’t get down off the couch. They knew they would have to have him put to sleep. When my mom told me that, I broke down!  He was my brother! I came over to say bye to him.

The vet came to the house and the nurse gave Shadow treats, and then the shots, as he lay on his bed.  He was chewing a piece of jerky when his heart stopped.  My dad keeps his ashes in a little chest by his desk.

I will always remember my brother, my Shadow of Love.

Fourth of July Disaster

 

It was the Fourth of July, 2007. My attendant, “Nina,” decided to go out for the day to a party. She put me in my manual chair because the party was not accessible. She left me on the porch and went to get something from the house that she had forgotten. But she also forgot to put the brakes on my chair. Out of nowhere my chair started rolling towards the front steps. I thought, “Fuck!” Then, “BANG!” My whole chair crashed down two steps and I hit my head on the concrete. My forehead was bleeding and my glasses were broken.  Fortunately my wonderful communication device saved my life by breaking my fall. A neighbor happened to walk by and helped me up, still in my chair. “Nina” ran out and wiped the blood from my face. I was crying and screaming. She said, “I need to take you to the hospital.” So she called my parents, who were hiking in the redwoods with Ziggy. She told them to meet us at the Kaiser ER.  Then she drove me to the ER in my van.

When we got there, I was seen right away. I must have looked terrible, like a bloody mess. They lifted me out of my chair and put me onto a gurney.  My parents walked in and I started to cry again. A doctor came in and looked at my forehead. First they cleaned the wound and it stung like hell. My parents held me down while the doctor tried to numb me and put in stitches – I don’t remember how many. My mom noticed that my tooth was chipped and that I would have to get it fixed.

After an hour I went home and ate some soup and went to bed. Both my sisters and my nephews came to see me.  Vicky brought me ice cream (chocolate, of course).

Once I felt a little better, but I still couldn’t wear my glasses, which I need for my communication device, I tried attaching my head pointer to my headband that had penis antennae. Isn’t that part of everyone’s adaptive equipment?

 

 

 

I was kind of able to communicate like that, but not quite ready for public speaking.

“Nina” told people that she had put the brakes on my chair, but it would not have rolled if the brakes had been set.  In fact, the brakes had just been fixed.  She was fired soon after that.

Man, those were some Fourth of July fireworks!

My Day at the Gun Club

 

One beautiful day in December my parents and I were on our way to a Chanukkah party in Cotati.  We had just gone through the toll plaza to get onto the Richmond Bridge, when my van started jerking. My mom told my dad, “Pull over to the shoulder and set the flashers!” My mom got on her phone and called Triple-A. They couldn’t come to the bridge, so they sent Cal-Trans. After about twenty minutes, a guy in an orange truck pulled up behind us and pushed my van across the Richmond Bridge to the first exit – the San Quentin exit.  We called Triple-A again and told them that we had to get back to Oakland and that there was a person in a wheelchair in the van. They told us we had to wait two hours. After a while my dad had to pee. My mom told him, “There’s a building over by the water.  Why don’t you go there?” Dad said, “Oh, that’s nothing,” but he went anyway.

When he returned, he said, “It’s the Marin Rod and Gun Club! They let me pee there!”

We had to wait so long in the van, that we started playing games like “Twenty Questions.” I was up first. My mystery was really hard; they got it in about three seconds: It was Max!

When the Triple-A truck finally came, the driver said that he couldn’t take me. What?  After we told them that we had a person in a wheelchair? What could we do?  My mom suggested that dad should go back to Oakland with Triple-A and the van. Mom and I would take our chances at the gun club and try to get a ride from there.

We crossed the road and tried to get to the entrance but you needed a secret code. Finally a guy came out and let us in. It was like a sports bar inside. There were dudes drinking beer and watching football on TV and betting. They were all white guys named things like Andy, Mike, Bill, Bob, Dick, and Tony. The bartender (Andy) offered to call for a ride for us. He called about four different companies before he found one that could pick us up – after six o’clock – and it was now about two.

By now I was hungry. We should have been having latkes in Cotati. I thought “What the hell am I going to eat?  All they have here is chips and beer.” So Mike said he was going to go out for pizza and would bring us whatever we wanted. We ordered a slice each of cheese pizza and he brought them in. Andy gave me a glass of cranberry juice and gave my mom a glass of wine. What sweet guys!  My mom had brought my food processor, so I enjoyed that pizza.

One guy, Tony, became interested in my communication device, so I showed him how it worked. He was so impressed that he explained how I accessed it to everybody else in the room and to new people who came in.  Soon, I had to go the bathroom. My mom cannot take me by herself anymore. So she asked for help of anyone who was willing to do it.  Tony volunteered. Fortunately the bathroom was accessible. It was challenging and Tony covered his eyes while he was transferring me, but it was successful.

Finally, after six, our ride showed up. The driver walked in and asked, “Can I do duck hunting here?”  Everybody told him, “We don’t hunt. We don’t have guns.”  Some gun club! I felt better about being there.

We got in the van and it was decorated with Christmas lights. What a way to spend Chanukkah!

 

The Fire

 

On December 3^rd, I was at La Peña in Berkeley, having fun dancing. At the same time, at the Ghost Ship, an Oakland warehouse building, people were listening to some electronic music.  About the time that I was doing the mambo, the Ghost Ship caught fire. The next day my roommate told me what happened.  I thought, thank God I wasn’t there. I was devastated. Right away I got on Facebook, and I saw notices about people who had died in the fire.  I saw the name of someone who graduated Berkeley High School with me.  I thought how sad a person my age died so tragically.

The next Monday my roommate asked me if I wanted to go to a vigil

that night to commemorate the victims of the fire. My attendant,

“Queenie,” acted as if it were not important. She took a long time to

feed me, as if I had  no place to be. First she complains about taking me.

Then she takes a long time to find Lake Merritt, which I can

practically see from my house. Next she calls my roommate to ask

where she was. My roommate said, “You’ll run right into it. Look for a

big crowd of people. Pull into Trader Joe’s.  I’ll meet you there.”

When we got to Trader Joe’s, my roommate and her friends met us.

“Queenie” started acting really strangely. She said she missed a

meeting and that it was my fault.

 

A week later, after a wonderful concert, we were out to dinner with my

roommate. She asked, “What are you going to do about ‘Queenie’?”

My mom said, “What do you mean?”  My roommate said,

“She was drinking the night of the vigil. Didn’t Ana tell you?”

Only then I realized that “Queenie” was drunk that night and that was

why she was acting strangely. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything.

My roommate said that she and her friends said that “Queenie” reeked

of alcohol.  I don’t know why I didn’t smell it. The next morning I woke

up in a panic, flailing and screeching. My mom was there because

“Queenie” was due to start her shift at 7AM and she never got there in

time. My mom asked me, “Ana, do you want to fire ‘Queenie’?” With

my whole body, I told her “Yes!”

After breakfast I wrote a long email to the company that provides my

attendants and they fired her right away.

Now I am more aware of who comes into my home. I’m trying to be

more aware of behaviors that might put me in danger.