Welcome to the rt tulley photography blogIt features photos, text, and poetry.Jumping Fences
Beth and her then boyfriend Branson had adopted Oakley as a young pup in 2009. Branson named Oakley after his favorite brand of sunglasses. We felt like Oakley had been abused by children, as he, even in his older days, was skeptical of kids and was skittish about letting them pet him. Even though he was Beth’s dog, Oakley adopted Bebe and I, so when Beth moved out, we got to keep him. I had my nicknames for him: Oaks, Oakster, and Buddy Buddy Buddy.
One day at our old house, Oakley, who was outside, came to the back door with a dead squirrel in his mouth. You could see in his face how proud he was to show me his kill. I just got on his case. I’m sure he didn’t understand. From that incident we inherited four baby squirrels, who were obviously the dead squirrel’s progeny. Sabrina, Beth, and I took care of them before we turned them over to the LSU Vet School for rehabilitation.
Every morning as I was leaving for work, I would tell him, “Oakley, I’ve got to go to work but I’ll be back. You take care of Grandma and be a good boy. I love you.” Maybe it’s just my wishful thinking, but I think he took his task of taking care of Grandma seriously, as I am sure he knew that Bebe’s health had not been too good lately. Bebe said he became her shadow, following her everywhere during the day. When I was packing to go on trips, he got sad and pouty but when I returned, he barked, whimpered, and wagged his tail as we hugged, and I scratched his ears. As I did with Cupcake, I created a song for Oakley that I sang to him when we went for walks: Oakley, Boakely you’re a good ole boy Oakley Boakely you’re a good ole boy Oakley Boakely you’re a good, good boy You’re a good, good, good boy Run Oakley run Run Oakley run Run Oakley run You’re a good, good, good, good boy.
I know, not very deep. He was probably thinking that I would never be a writer! But he seemed to like it, and I know he listened because when he was younger, he would pick up his pace when I got to the part about running. He would get so excited when we took our morning and evening walks. If I forgot or neglected to take him, he would come up to me and begin barking to remind me. When I grabbed his lease, you would not believe the joy in his face and his jumping and prancing.
One day this past week, Bebe called and said he was lying down and panting, obviously in pain. I came home from work to take him to the vet. The vet told me he was in his last days and likely would not make it through the night due to his chronic kidney disease. As this was just a walk-in clinic, they did not have euthanasia or in-house lab testing. She suggested going to an animal emergency hospital. Expecting to put him down, I took him home so Bebe, Beth, and Sabrina could say goodbye. At the animal hospital, just to be sure, I asked for lab tests before we put him down. The vet came back and said he had a UTI. With this, I thought there was hope. So, I had him stay there two days for antibiotic and fluid infusions. When I picked him up two days later, he seemed better. He was still drugged out the next day, but he drank water and was walking around. Although he didn’t seem to be in pain, on Sunday he stopped eating, drinking, and vomited a few times. Then, the final blow, he had a seizure. I knew then that it was time. Before we left the house, he had come up to me, put his snout in the crook of my arm while I petted his head. I know I felt his love, and he felt mine. At the hospital, the procedure was fast and painless for him. He slept through the entire procedure, even before the meds were injected. He went quietly.
I typed his history, lab test results, and symptoms to ChatGPT. It told me the most likely diagnosis was end-stage renal disease with possible neurological issues, with progression toward end of life. Then ChatGPT said “Many people feel guilty about choosing euthanasia, but I can tell you it’s not giving up. It’s choosing to protect him from further suffering when there’s no clear path back to comfort or joy. You’ve already done so much-16 years of love, care, and being his person. That’s a full, beautiful life.” Who would know that an AI could sound so compassionate and human! Since that day, I come home from work, and even though I know better, I briefly feel the excitement of greeting Oakley for an instant before I tell my heart what my brain knows. He’s not going to be there.
Oakley Boakley you’re a good ole boy, you’re a good, good, good, good, good boy. And I know that you are now pain free. You have jumped your final fence. I am missing you.
Our Last GoodbyeOur Last Goodbye rt tulley 12/17/17
Question: How do you coalesce 15 ½ years into a 5-minute goodbye? Short answer: It’s tough. You tell your beloved dog that you love her. That she’s your Cuppy Puppy Cake, your Baby Girl. That she’s the best dog ever. You rub behind her ears, pet her. Kiss the top of her snout. You hug her. And you sing Cuppy’s Song. The one that never failed to bring about tail wagging when you got to the bridge. And then you remove her harness, the one that enabled the last two and a half years to be meaningful and livable for her. And you watch as they carry her off, wrapped in a towel like swaddling clothes, as she lifts her head up and looks at you with a questioning look, a look that breaks your heart. Even now as you recall it - the last visible memory of her that will no doubt haunt you the rest of your days. It was only two weeks till Christmas 2017.
She was my daughter’s dog, Beth’s eleventh year birthday present. My son and his girlfriend had picked the puppy out from the shelter while I went to the teller machine to get the cash needed to buy her way into our hearts. And she did that. My daughter wanted a Husky; I thought a Yellow Lab would be great. What we got was a Golden Retriever mix, kind of funny looking to me at first, with fluffy, curly red hair. But after getting to know her, I know why my son picked this dog for his sister - she was the most friendly, gentle, and loveable dog I’ve ever known. She won our hearts over and loved us as we loved her. She loved just about every person and every dog she ever met. My daughter named her Cupcake. We coined several nicknames for her: Cuppy, Cuppy Cake, Cuppy Puppy Cake. After getting to know her, to me, she was beautiful inside and out. And she was an integral member of our family for fifteen and a half years. It didn’t take long, much to my daughter’s dismay, for Cuppy to adopt me as her favorite person. I told Cuppy every morning “I have to go to work, but I’ll be back!” She would be waiting for me when I returned. When I had to go out of town and pulled out the luggage, she would get that depressed look on her face, so I said, “I have to go on a trip, but I’ll be back!” But returns were always fantastically met with wagging, cuddling, and excitement. Sometimes she ignored me to show she was mad, but she couldn’t keep that pretense up for long. She slept next to me on the floor by my bed for the longest time, but then chose her favorite spot at the foot of the bed as her place.
Two and a half years ago, out of the blue, my wife called me at work to tell me that something was wrong with Cupcake. She had stroke-like symptoms. I rushed home and carried her to the car and to the vet. The vet thought she had had a stroke or brain tumor. Her symptoms were that she held her head either cocked or with her snout up in the air and with her eyes moving around rapidly. The vet thought she should be put down. This thought brought about the anxiety I was to face on that Monday two weeks before Christmas.
But it was not the right time. I wanted to wait to see how she did and do some research on her condition. While she was in the animal hospital, I visited her every day at lunch and after work. Cuppy would crawl out of the kennel to be next to me when I visited. It turned out to be Vestibular Disease. With steroids, she improved and could go home after three days. I bought a ‘Help Em Up’ harness, so that I could stabilize her unsteady walking and lift her into the car. She would still get wobbling and had dizzy moments but was fairly good with the harness most of the time.
I think those two and a half years were well worth it. Cuppy and I grew even closer. I was now her protector. She loved being around me. In the latter weeks, when she was too weak to walk out of the bedroom, she would bark for me as I watched TV in the living room. I would go to the bedroom, comfort her, and put the TV on where I’d watch the show there. When she became reliant on my help, I would help her up but encourage her to walk, which she always did for me until the last couple of weeks.
As she went downhill for the last month or so, losing thirty pounds in the last year and being unable to walk much at all, I prayed many times that God would heal her or failing that, to let me know when it was time. Only that second prayer was answered. My daughter said that Cuppy was only holding on because of me and that our Cupcake was so tired. After a cough developed on Thanksgiving Day, and with Cuppy sleeping all the time, finally not eating, obviously not feeling well, I convinced myself I would go to the Vet to get her some treatment. But when we got there, Cuppy immediately went to sleep on the floor, not even afraid like she usually was at the Vet. Lying there on the floor of the exam room and sleeping, I knew it was time. I did not want her to suffer. It’s not to say there weren’t and haven’t been self-doubts. But still we said our goodbyes.
Now, every little thing brings out that gush of emotion and teary eyes/ bawling: putting up her bowl, washing and putting away her ‘Help Em Up’ harness, looking at her pictures, seeing the wagon in which we went on “walks” when she didn’t have the stamina to walk far on her own, finding tufts of her hair in the back yard, writing this, seeing the runner rugs and throw rugs my wife put down to help Cuppy from falling on the wood floor, and especially when I think of Cuppy’s Song. It just about kills me every time I sing it now. I miss her so much. How do you say goodbye? I guess you never really do. CUPPY’S SONG (I’m sure you are familiar with the melody: I borrowed the chorus from a Lee Morse song from my parents’ generation, written in 1925, and added a bridge): Chorus: Yes sir, that’s my baby No sir, don’t mean maybe Yes sir, that’s my baby now. Yes sir, that’s my Cuppy No sir, don’t mean maybe Yes sir, that’s my Cuppy now.
Bridge: Dabba dabba do Dabba dabba do Oh Cuppy Cake I love you Dabba dabba dy Dabba dabba dy I don’t know why I just do.
Repeat Chorus
August 21, 2016
Resilience
This past week has been one of the worst times in southern Louisiana’s history. Comparison’s with the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina have been made, but these comparisons should not take away from the cataclysmic destruction of either event. However, the Baton Rouge area has never directly experienced the magnitude of destruction which it did this past week. It is estimated that 30% of the homes in East Baton Rouge Parish neighboring parishes have been damaged. A number on the order of 100,000 people affected directly has been put out there. Bebe and I were fortunate in that the new house we are in saw no flood waters nor flooding streets in the neighborhood. One day, I was flooded in by the streets surrounding the neighborhood. We were an island amid the chaos.
The people of Louisiana have again shown their resilience, their compassion toward others hurting, and their willingness to wholeheartedly volunteer to help those in need. The stories are rampant such as the about the man who rescued a woman stuck in her flooding car, of the “Cajun Navy”, those volunteers with personal fishing boats who went out to rescue those trapped. The lessons learned from the foibles following Hurricane Katrina have been put in place, including the rescuing of pets, which was mostly disallowed during Katrina. It took that major disaster for people to realize that a pet owner is often willing to sacrifice his own safety for that of his pets.
Another important factor in the resilience of people is to have friends or relatives who are willing to give them a temporary shelter from the storm, a place to stay, when they are playing it safe from possible floodwaters, or for total shelter when there is no other place. We had some houseguests in this regard.
This photo is of my wife Bebe, Elizabeth, the daughter of her cousin, my daughter Beth, and Sylvia, a friend. Beth and Sylvia stayed a night or few during the time of crisis. Here they are passing the time away coloring pages from an adult coloring book with the headlines from the paper clearly in view. Resilience of people in Louisiana is shown by their willingness to help others, to engage in games or fun, and to lose themselves in sports. The passion of the people from Louisiana is shown in everything they do, from volunteering, giving a little acute aid, giving some money or food or supplies, or just plain being there.
The flood © 2016 rt tulley
there was a flood recently in my state it washed away something what some perceived as hate and left in its wake wonderment and joy replaced this with not something temporary but something the water failed to destroy It brought out the best the best side of a people a side that had lain dormant even under the spire of a steeple although it took nothing less nothing less than a tragedy for us to step up to the plate to show us what man can be.
Aug 21, 2016 August 11Storm Clouds
Storm clouds inevitably will gather over us from time to time and often unleash their fury. To successfully navigate our ships over the seas of life, we need to persevere them and look beyond the immediate. I hadn’t played golf in while but had the opportunity this past week, since I was taking some annual leave from work, to practice three straight days prior playing golf this past Saturday. I was feeling very good about my golf swing and the way I was hitting the ball. I can’t say that I had lost the ability to strike the ball well. On the practice range, that is. The golf course is obviously a different matter. I hit shots on the golf course that never showed up on the range and I failed to transfer the good shots from the range to the course. I believe I have officially become a “duffer” on the course, having lost 20 or more strokes in the past 5-10 years. It’s tough but if I have to live with it, I know I can. But stop playing golf? Never!
I was thinking about weathering storms and storm clouds after a storm sprung upon me suddenly during my round on Saturday at Santa Maria Golf Course in Baton Rouge. This photo was taken on the par four tenth, my final hole of the day. Unfortunately, something much more tragic and serious than a bad game of golf happened to a very important person in my daughter Beth’s life recently. Just a couple of weeks ago, her ex-boyfriend was buried. It was quite disturbing to us all, but especially for Beth, who had never stopped loving him. He was a very good baseball player in high school and a straight A student when he and Beth began dating. He was fun to be around, had a great sense of humor, and had a fearless passion for baseball and everything else he did. He never coasted; he lived his life at full throttle. Perhaps that is why he suffered so many injuries during his life and had to give up baseball after high school. It was with that in mind that Beth and I bought him his first set of golf clubs, gave him lessons, and played quite a few rounds of golf with him. We were hoping he would find something that could replace baseball and weather the storm. And for a while he was bitten by the golf bug. But, unfortunately, he found something else. After he had broken it off with Beth, he became seriously addicted to drugs. I had thought and hoped that it was just a phase and he would land on his feet again. Although his parents, friends, and Beth tried to help him, he sank lower and lower, till finally in a moment of despair, ended it all. He could never overcome that slice in his game and could see only hopelessness beyond the clouds. All of his family and friends knew more of his potential than he knew himself. He would have been surprised and pleased with the outpouring of love for him at the funeral. If only…we kept saying. We will miss him dearly.
Although I did not weather the storm clouds this past Saturday (I quit after the tenth as lightening got closer), I will keep keeping on, trying to get better on the golf course. And even if I don’t ever get better, at least I can take photographs of beautiful golf courses like this. I pray that you all will successfully look beyond the storm and find reason and meaning in life and experience clear blue skies ahead. Looking beyond the storm may be difficult because, from our current position, all we may see are dark clouds. It is only in weathering the storm that we may eventually experience that birdie or eagle that we never knew we had in us. Each of you has so much unseen potential that I hope you all can realize.
By the way, today marks the 41st anniversary for Bebe and I. Talk about weathering the storm! We have been through a few. And, I can say, it’s nice to go through those storms with someone very special on the journey. I could think of no better traveling companion!
foggy vision of unclear sight
foggy vision of unclear sight failure to see unclouded stars failure to discern day from night they say to succeed you have to learn to visualize look into the future of possibilities to learn to improvise make something from nothing so as not to sink into despair and fact will come from fiction a wounded psyche will find repair. © rt tulley July 20, 2014Science MattersLife, the Universe, and Everything
Would Douglas Adams, the author of the popular The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy, be alive today, I hope he would forgive me for borrowing the title of the third book of his comical science fiction so called “trilogy” of five books, to speak about the relationship of science to God. Perhaps Adams would not be a fan of my use for this article, in that Adams himself was a devoted atheist. Although fascinated by the effect of religion on man, he felt one could look at the beauty of life for its own sake, rather than having to put God there. Adams was not alone. Many think science and religion do not mix.
Science and religion may be based on incompatible methods: the scientific method seeks to prove or disprove hypotheses using experiments which result in empirical data which is analyzed using accepted methodology; whereas religion is primarily based on faith. Are these truly incompatible? Many studies have been conducted which exam scientists’ religious beliefs verses those of the general population. Most of these uphold the fact that fewer scientists believe in God than do the general population. One such study, conducted in 2009 found that 33% of scientists believed in God versus 83% in the general population (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Survey, 2009). Most people would look at this data and notice the lesser percentage of scientists who believe. But I find the 33% of scientists who still believe fascinating. If science and religion are so incompatible, why is that a third of scientists actively believe in God? I think it may be because science will never discover all the answers. New discoveries generally lead to new questions. As a scientist myself, I believe that there are unanswerable questions. Thus comes belief and faith.
When one looks at the magnificence of life, it’s self-sustaining nature, in spite of its penchant for self-destruction, one cannot help but marvel. The ability of living creatures to reproduce and stave off multitudes of insults and infections is amazing. However these processes are not perfect. Many of us are saddled by genetic abnormalities which lead to problems and the life sustaining processes break down in time and eventually fail. But one cannot view life and not be amazed. How is it that the complex biochemical basis for life, DNA, developed from sugar molecules and some ringed base compounds, put together in a spiral double stranded structure, could have happened by chance? How is it that an intricate coding system based on a three letter code could send signals that cause proteins, hormones, and regulator substances to be synthesized and monitored without any conscious thought on our parts? Could the elaborate system of life have occurred by happenstance? If so, my brain cannot fathom it. To me, it took a mighty Engineer. Much more likely and much mightier than could have occurred by accident.
It was science and not religion that has discovered these things. But it wasn’t science that invented them. Man can do many wondrous things. But creating a living, breathing, thinking creature is not one of them. You might say that science has cloned animals. You might say that man can create babies in petri dishes. And you would be correct. But science has not found a way to create a complex living thing from chemicals that were not pre-populated by the biochemical machinery created by nature. In other words, at this time, it takes preformed enzymes, cells, and the biochemical milieu borrowed from living things in order to do this. In this way, science is admitting that it does not know everything, that it cannot do everything.
Science can study great works of art. It can look at the elemental and physical composition of the canvas, it can look at the type of paint used, and it can approximate the date it was created with carbon dating. Historians can study the artist and what motivated them to produce the work of art. Man can do all those things. A man might even be able to make a nearly identical copy to the original. But man can never duplicate the actual work. Man can only surmise how the painting was done and all the other essentials. So, although man and science can determine many things, in the end, they fall short in all aspects of dissecting the painting completely. There are things we will never know, such as the exact movement of muscles as the painter applied the paint using brush strokes developed through experience. But what we can do is we can appreciate the painting. And we can marvel in it.
For me, I love science. Rather than creating doubt, it allows me to sense complete amazement in everything. I cannot look at the beauty of this world, its mountains, its bayous, a sunset, hold a newborn baby and feel its heart beating in its chest, look upon people holding hands in love, or hear laughter, and not feel a sense of gratitude to the God who put me here and made all these things. My belief is that Science is man’s way of attempting to get a glimpse at God - how God works. It’s like taking apart an engine to see how it works. We are taking apart things to see how God works. God is everything. God makes everything. And God uses the laws of science to do this. And when we study science, it’s all about the magnificence of life, the universe, and everything.
life, the universe, and everything
when i proceed to ponder life, the universe, and everything up yonder i dizzily gasp for breath viewing all that lies between birth and death the mysteries and magnificence of creations’ brilliance of abundant extravagance microscopic, macroscopic and all in between a vision only god could have foreseen. © 2014 rt tulley
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