Last night as Charlie and I were watching the best show
ever, otherwise known as The Daily Show (last night was particularly
hysterical), an ad came on for Father’s Day. I remember how much Mother’s Day
fucked me up, so I asked him how he was feeling about it.
Charlie said, “Fine, unless I think about it.” Thanks, TV!
Since my father was never part of my life, and Charlie’s
father died over twenty years ago, neither of us has bothered much with
Father’s Day. But this year, of course, was supposed to be Charlie’s first as a
father. And since my Dad died this year, I think we are both thinking about it
more.
Today at lunch I was sitting in a recovery meeting and
listening to people share around me, and I got really quiet. Sometimes when
this happens, I can hear a voice inside me I call my “little girl.”
(OK: so this is going to be a bunch of psychological
mumbo-jumbo, all right? Plus, I think I wrote about it before, but am feeling
too lazy to peruse my archives and check, so feel free to skip it and go down
to the next section.)
I first met my inner little girl when I was doing some grief
work in therapy and began practicing regular meditation. The little girl
appeared to me perfectly clearly during meditation one day. She was six or
seven years old, fierce as could be, with a stuffed animal in one hand and a
knife in the other. She was wearing her hair in braids, but one was cut off.
For a little background explanation: when I was a little
girl, I had beautiful long hair I wore in two braids. A very traumatic day for
me was the day my mother decided she didn’t have time to deal with my hair
anymore and chopped it off (I was seven, I believe). I also was only allowed to
play with stuffed animals (dolls subjugated women by either creating an
unrealistic body image or by forcing girls into gender roles; however, the boys
I knew were allowed to play with dolls, because it meant they were
“breaking out” of gender roles. Not having a Barbie doll as a little girl sucks,
and everyone laughs at you, and I ended up with a bad body image anyway).
Lastly, when I was about the age of my inner little girl I used to use a knife
to poke holes in my mother’s waterbed (I tried to make it look like it was the
cat); hence the knife in the little girl’s hand.
She was a reflection of my abandonment issues, so I began
trying to nurture this inner little girl. In meditation I’d envision holding
her, combing her hair, playing with her, etc. This practice deepened my
spirituality and also my sense of peace and serenity. It was lovely.
But I’ve gotten out of the practice of meditation. Now if I
sit quietly and try to “listen to God” I just feel angry and sad, and it
doesn’t really help me at all. A side effect, of course, is that I’ve once
again neglected that inner little girl.
Today, in the meeting, I heard that inner little girl
distinctly cry out, “Daddy!”
Now, my entire experience with the word “daddy” comes from
a) other people’s children, b) the way Sarah called up her father to tell him
she found a wedding dress and it was just a little bit more than they’d
discussed, and c) porn (as in “Who’s your daddy?”).
But I felt it, that “Daddy!”; I felt it in my bones.
I was filled with intense longing. It was a longing to be
taken care of. It was a crying out to a being that loves me, saying, please,
please, please make this all stop and take away the pain, I can’t go on
anymore, I can’t do it all by myself.
I realize it was more of a reaching out to God than to my
actual father; my father was never anything like a Dad to me, or, really, any
of his children that I can see (maybe to my youngest sister). But that call of
my inner little girl was loud and clear, and true.
It’s the first prayer I’ve actually felt in months.
I am absolutely furious about the situation in Denver. You
mean you haven’t heard?
Denver passed a law fifteen years ago banning Pit Bulls
within the city limits—because one Pit Bull attacked and killed a child. Now, like my state, Colorado has a law on the books
forbidding breed-specific legislation, but recently a judge decided that it was
ok for the city to enforce the ban anyway.
So now they are slaughtering Pit Bulls, most of whom are NOT
fighting dogs, but pets. Pets like my dog Hammer (usually called Bubba).
An actual “underground railroad” for pits has formed to
sneak them out of the city and into safe havens (I think referring to it as an
underground railroad is a little, I don’t know, dismissive of slavery, but no
one hired me to write the articles).
I realize that when pit bulls attack, people can be more seriously injured than when some other breeds attack. This has led to one of the most common myths about pits:
Pit Bulls do NOT have locking jaws. Pit Bulls have amazingly strong jaws and can become very, um, dedicated to whatever they bite (in my dog’s case it’s
usually tennis balls and rocks).
Oh, and by the way? “Pit Bulls” isn’t even an actual breed.
It’s a dog that’s mixed with breeds like the American Stafordshire Terrier to
be a fighting dog. Calling a dog a “Pit Bull” is like saying Muhamed Ali is a
“boxer” not a “human being.”
The dogs that bite the most in this country tend to be
breeds that everyone thinks are adorable; like Cocker Spaniels (for many years
the number one offender), the Lhasa Apso, Yorkies, and yes, even Golden
Retrievers and Labs. Pit bulls make up a tiny percentage of overall dogs bites
(although, admittedly, due to their strength they do account for about a fifth
of dog bite fatalities).
Instead of discussing the actual CAUSES of dog bites, cities
are banning specific breeds; which—by the way—is horrendously ineffective and
merely leads to new breeds being exploited and abused for fighting, and does
not decrease the overall number of dog bites at all.
But here are the two main causes of dog bites: chaining your
dog up outside and leaving it alone for great lengths of time, and NOT
NEUTERING YOUR MALE DOG. Here is some great information about how to prevent
dog bites.
This whole situation makes me sick, and terribly afraid that
this will happen in my city. My dog is such a sweetheart that he allows
strangers in the house without doing anything except maybe forcing them to pet
him (he’s been home alone a few times while we’ve been showing the house, and
usually won’t even get off the couch). I can’t imagine what you would have to
do to my dog to get him to bite you; maybe turn into a giant tennis ball? I’d
love to believe that he would defend me if I was attacked, but somehow I doubt
it. He’d be too busy trying to find out if the person attacking me could maybe
just stop long enough to give him some love, or perhaps a ham sandwich. The
thought of him being killed just because of his breed makes me want to cry.
I don’t want to trivialize the horror of being attacked by a
dog. It is a painful, and life altering, experience. But our relationship with
dogs goes back to the very beginnings of human history. Educating children how
to behave around dogs, and working hard to eradicate the abuse of dogs, will go
much, much further in preventing further tragedies than breed-specific
legislation.
By the way: deaths by guns exceed deaths by pit bulls by
something like 8000% in the Denver area. But you don’t see Denver slaughtering
gun owners, do you?
***Thank you to whomever sent me the link about this. I lost the email so I can't credit you properly. I'm sorry!
