Recovering The Self

Healing Together: Kimberly and Lucy Memoir

Kimberly J. Brown

"Not the ones speaking the same language, but the ones sharing the same feeling understand each other."

~ Rumi

We carry wounds.

We carry scar tissue.

We carry memories of trauma or fear, invisibly, on the inside.

Even those among us, who walk on four paws, carry their wordless memories. A fire forced the previous owners of "Nikki," a rust/black Australian Cattle Dog mix who we renamed "Lucy", to surrender her at the Humane Society. Did the fire force them to move to an apartment where they couldn't keep her? Was she caught in the fire? We wouldn't know; there was no additional information.

On August 1, 2007, I survived the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, MN. I fell 114 feet to what I thought would be my death. Instead, I walked away with treatable spine and neck injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. That day, 145 people were injured and 13 were killed. Since the collapse, Lucy has been my "second-best friend" - just behind Rachel, my partner of almost ten years. Together, with our bad memories, Lucy and I heal.

~ ~ ~

We adopted Lucy on a cold snowy Minnesota morning, the day after Valentine's Day in 2004. I'll never forget walking into the Humane Society's dog room with all the long cages. Heartbreaking, all these dogs without homes! To know that so many four-legged souls waited for some kind person they'd never met to be their rescue. How many of them, if they could talk, would ask, "Is it my turn to survive?" But Rach and I told each other, "We'll leave with a dog today." Why a dog, why that day? I'm not sure what made us so determined.

Window shopping for a medium-sized doggie, the noise from all the barking bouncing off the hard walls nearly overwhelmed us. When we got to Lucy's cage, her upper decibel barking made us pass her by. I said, "Wow, that's loud. Too loud." We agreed and moved on.

We looked at every dog they had. Grown dogs first, then puppies. We walked a black lab pup who was adorable and healthy, but really hyper. We held another little puppy, just spayed, only weeks old. So docile, almost limp-she wouldn't survive our full-grown adult cats. Were we going to find our dog? It wasn't looking good. Sensing that our visit was almost over, disappointed and a little desperate, I returned to dogs we'd already seen. We looked longingly at Lucy. If it weren't for that ear-piercing bark. Just then, a Humane Society staffer suggested we visit with Lucy alone. "Sometimes, their personalities change when they're out of that caged area."

Lucy, Rachel, and I walked into a quiet room painted in solid neutral colors, a window and one bench covered the far wall. Lucy hopped up on the bench, sat down, panted, and didn't say a word. She just wagged her tail, as if to ask, "When are we going home?"

Never judge a book by her bark.

~ ~ ~

Soon after the adoption, I drove down a six-lane freeway with Lucy in the car when a thick plume of smoke rose into the air and wafted across the lanes. Where it had come from, I wasn't sure, but the burning smell grew stronger. Lucy panted and paced, from one side window to the other. Why wouldn't she calm down? I kept sneaking peeks at her in my rearview mirror. I noticed liquid sloshing back-and-forth across the carpeted floor.

Pee, I realized. Luckily, I'd put a doggie rug in back, so it was expendable. But, at first it didn't click. Was there something wrong with her? With her health? Then it dawned on me.

She remembers.

What did she see? What did she go through?

~ ~ ~

At that point in my life, having Lucy felt new and unfamiliar. I was like a new mom: excited, a bit unsure. Growing up, I'd had dogs, but they were my parents' dogs. I'd never been responsible for one all on my own. I was in my mid-thirties, it was a few days before my dad's birthday in June, and it was my turn to pick up Mom from dialysis. She had battled with diabetes for longer than I'd been alive.

The sun's direct heat packed a punch, so I parked the car in the shade of an overhang. I walked to the dialysis room to retrieve my mom. A nurse tended four patients in various stages of treatment. Mom introduced me to several people lying in recliners, knobs, and pulleys on the dialysis machines turning and cleansing their blood. They brightened briefly, as they waved hello.

I grabbed her canvas bag and held the door open. Mom pushed through the doorway on her gray walker with yellow tennis ball feet. A lover of animals, Mom had adorned her walker with a hodgepodge of pet toys. Hung from the middle bars: a glittery silver spider, jingling metal balls, and fuzzy pipe cleaner strands swung and jangled with each step.

She asked, her voice rising, "Did you bring Lucy?"

"Yes, she's waiting for you."

"Oh good," she said as she stepped. We turned left at the hallway's bend, and exited the automatic doors to the sidewalk.

Countless times I have been at Mom's side, helpless. I couldn't stop her blood sugars from crashing and rising. I couldn't cure her need for insulin injections. I couldn't heal her depression or banish neuropathy pains. But bringing Lucy along so Mom could see her, this was simple. So I looked forward to seeing the expression on Mom's face when she saw my new dog.

Ears back, wagging her curly tail, Lucy poked her head out the car window. Mom broke into a coo and a smile as she reached to pet her. "Oh, Lucy. Lucy Loo. Oh, she's the biggest and the finest of all the sniffer dogs." Words of praise she's said to all of her dogs.

"Darnit!" Mom said.

"What?"

"I forgot the cookies." A.K.A. Milk Bones.

I grinned. "That's okay, Mom."

At work a few days later, someone said my sister was on the line. Dread clenched my stomach. Though Mom had been sick for so long (most of my life) I hoped, Don't let it be what I think it is. Mom died June 29, 2004-same as Dad's birthday-a few days after we said goodbye. In shock, all I could remember were the jingling cat toys on her walker and her coos to Lucy. The very finest of all the sniffer dogs.

~ ~ ~

Flash forward to 2007, early nights after the bridge collapse, nights I dreamed of that horrifying fall-I put off going to bed. Instead, I stayed awake as long as I could, spending hours surfing the Internet for stories recapping the bridge collapse.

"Why?" I would wonder, at 2- and 3- a.m., eyes bleary. I was there. I dropped 114 feet into the river on that bridge. Why on earth would I need to search for more proof that this horrible thing had truly happened?

When I finally succumbed to sleep, I nearly stumbled into bed and slept out of exhaustion. But later I woke, back aching, and sobbed. My face wet, I mourned losing. So many losses happening at once. To so many innocent people. The massive injuries, broken bones, people who were robbed of a proper goodbye. Without warning, we fell.

Our room's dark blue walls lulled me in my exhausted reverie as I remembered, over-and-over, the mile of bridge falling from the sky.

Those nights-with no preparation against the attack of grief-Rachel and Lucy protected me. Rach held me, cried with me, and rocked with me as I sobbed. Her hand rested on my back. The gossamer tissue-as I took them from Rach's crying hands-disintegrated under the tears falling into my clutched palms. Lucy, who slept in her dog bed on the floor, stood and set her muzzle at my side. She refused to go back to bed until I led her there, and in her own way, she took care of me. Although her dog bed was merely a few feet away, she'd return and refuse to leave my side.

Rach and I looked at each other through stinging, swollen eyes. When we were all cried out, we hugged, kissed, and said aloud, "I love you- I'm so lucky to have you-"I'm so lucky to still be here-"What if I had died?-"How would I have gone on?-"Those poor people-"I was only 10 seconds from being crushed by that sign (a heavy overhead highway sign fell onto one of the 13 people who were killed) -"I could've been 5 seconds earlier and drowned-"A woman stood on a car's rooftop, but couldn't get to another woman as she drowned-"Thank god you survived-"Oh, thank god."

Then awash with grief again, guilt coated me in the darkness like paste. Our momentary calm dissipated into more crying, thick with the realization of how unfair it was that we were so lucky. Lucy wiggled at the bedside, paced, and licked her chops, which made a sticking sound. Bridges aren't supposed to fall.

~ ~ ~

"C'mon. Let's go potty," I told Lucy, as she labored to stand from her dog bed. She walked four paws like each were hardened in buckets of wet cement. These commands had worked famously, but whenever there was popping noises coming from outside, they did...