Blacktop got his name because he was pitch black without a spot of white anywhere. My husband and I had just gotten divorced and Blacktop was a wooly shepherd dog who joined our little family to ease the transition for my three-year-old.
Mary Susan and I loved him, but Blacktop was a holy terror for the rest of our neighborhood. We could often hear people screaming from several streets over, “Stop, Blacktop! Bring that back!” One day I was greeted at the door by an angry woman shaking a shoe in my face. “That dog of yours took one of my expensive running shoes,” she yelled. “That dog will even go into your GARAGE to take your things!” Once she calmed down, she offered to “lend me” her husband so he could teach me how to teach my dog to stay at home. No thanks. I declined. (She and her husband had one of those dorky messages on their answering machine where they took turns saying a line.) I did pay the woman for her shoes, and she was right - they were crazy expensive.
I really didn’t believe these terrible allegations about Blacktop until one day I found a stash in the corner of our yard, way up under the bushes, that could have stocked an entire thrift store. There were all kinds of interesting (and a few embarrassingly private) items – including the angry woman’s shoe. Sure enough, there it was. Blacktop was caught red handed, so I put up a fence.
A few years later, my daughter and I moved to a horse farm and of course, Blacktop went with us. He was a special part of our family, and thank goodness, he finally had room to roam.
Running Xanadu Farm as a single mom was often very hard, but I was too stubborn to admit it. If I didn’t know how to do something, I found a farmer nearby who could teach me. It was physically exhausting, and work started at sunup and lasted until sundown. There were many frustrations: farm equipment that broke down at the worst possible time, weather that could make life miserable, difficult boarders who thought their horses were children, and horses that sometimes misbehaved. There were many times I wanted to give up, but I would tell myself, “It’s time to get your big girl panties on! You just have to get in there and do it.”
There was a sad day when this was put to the test. I heard the yelp off in the distance and discovered our dog, Blacktop, had been killed on the highway in front of our property. Naturally, I was heartbroken, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him getting pulverized by more vehicles by the time my daughter got home from school, so I grabbed my pickup to get him.
(Heads up: This is where the movie shifts from PG to PG-13, just in case you are squeamish.)
I will never forget standing on the highway, crying my eyes out, struggling and fighting to pick up our precious dog’s lifeless body, which weighed close to 70 pounds. I’m sure I was quite a sight as people slowed down and drove around me. His fur still felt warm to my face and had that familiar smell. Oh, Blacktop, why did you have to cross the road? But as I worked to lift the body, I was disgusted to find that his insides had spilled out of his belly and were strung out for several feet on the pavement, making it even more difficult to move him. I remember seeing that grotesque sight and thinking, this must be what the Bible refers to as “entrails”. Gross.
At that moment I knew what I had to do. Get your big girl panties on! I reached for my pocketknife that I used to cut baling twine. With so many tears in my eyes that I could barely see, I stooped down and used my knife to sever Blacktop's body from the parts he had lost so I could shove his heavy carcass into the bed of my truck. I didn’t like it. It made me gag. I didn’t want to do it - but it had to be done, so I did it. After that, this incident became the standard by which to measure every challenge I faced until a bigger one took its place.
I can’t help but notice - this week, the one experts project to be the worst one yet for COVID-19, is the same week we commemorate the greatest suffering of all time. Jesus’ death on the cross. Does anything really compare to that? The timing is pretty remarkable.
I realize losing my dog, Blacktop, and having to do crude surgery on his broken body, doesn’t come close to the kind of suffering some people are experiencing right now, although for others this season is simply an inconvenience. Regardless of where we find ourselves in that wide range of distress, we need to find a way for this unbelievable event to make us stronger and better. If we come out of this unchanged, that will be the true tragedy.
As I have watched people responding to this pandemic, there is one group that has really made an impression on me. Here they are.
Last week I was having a video chat with some of our amazing women at Blue Monarch who are quarantined together. (I miss them so much and will never again take them for granted.) I noticed their attitudes were the healthiest I have seen. As I looked at each smiling face, it finally hit me - every single one of them, and even some of their children, have experienced worse crises than this nasty pandemic. In fact, some of their stories could break your heart and keep you awake at night. Even after 17 years of horrific stories, I am still shocked at what human beings will do to one another.
“Hey, let me ask you something. Have any of you experienced a true crisis in your life?” With no hesitation, every single hand went up in unison. Of course, they have. But they survived it. And they became stronger for it. They have raw, genuine faith in God, which gives them great peace. And they know they will survive this crisis, too. We have a lot to learn from them.
After we signed off, I lingered in front of my computer screen, really moved by the joy and peace I had seen in their faces, even in the midst of this bizarre and uncertain crisis. I was ashamed at feeling a little sorry for myself over the past few weeks. “Susan, you know what? It is time to get your big girl panties on and fight through this!”
My thoughts immediately took me back to those days at Xanadu Farm. I couldn’t help but laugh because I finally realized, even though I went through some tough times back then, I really loved that chapter of my life because it made me better and stronger. That's where I learned to get in there and do it, even when I don't want to, even when it hurts - and each one of those trials prepared me for what I do today. How can I not be thankful for that?
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Dear Lord, by the time this thing's over, I want to be more like them. Please, teach me how.
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