This work was published in The Avenue Journal, Issue X: Dogs
Howls In Harmony
by Stephen Sedam
Looking out the fifth-floor hospital window, I see a cold, gray, dull day near the end of a dark, lifeless January. Jay and I have been talking. We are the only ones in the white-walled intensive care room with several beeping monitors and equipment I’ve never seen before. From his bed, my friend looks over to me and says, “I’ve been thinking of ways to kill myself, but then realized I can’t use my hands.”
I look into his eyes and see deep despair. Fumbling around for the right words, I land on, “I’m so sorry Jay. This has got to be so hard. Just know that whatever you want for yourself is what I want for you, too.” How he got here is direct line through twenty-one years of progressive multiple-sclerosis (MS). This once-vibrant athlete with easy charm and sharp wit finds himself at age 51 with a wife and teen-aged daughter, possessing a lucid mind, keen wit, and kind disposition, imprisoned in an incessantly deteriorating body. Trapped by a jagged jumble of broken function, his condition seems to worsen with every passing unit of time. No cure in sight.
After four urinary tract infections in the past year, his bladder was removed two days ago, replaced by the tubes and pouches of a new waste management system. His pain touches all levels. With a steady voice he confides, “I’m done.”
* * *
Wolves, the gray, eastern and red, once roamed at will across North America. Key to the survival of this top predator lives are the communities they create. These communities, or packs, help to raise young pups, coordinate movements among individual wolves to bring down large prey like elk or moose, provide safety, and create structure and order within a wild extended family.
With haunting notes held for prolonged periods punctuated by occasional chips and barks, their howls are the stuff of legend. Howls communicate location, warnings, and affection to fellow pack members. The doleful sound floats over a landscape catching your attention as the energy of a free, resilient spirit.
Heard in the dark of night, wolf howls pierce the human imagination where myth grows unrestrained. Myth leads to misunderstanding with little counterweight in those who will never see or hear a wolf. In 1697, the Frenchman Charles Perault penned a story of deceitful wolf who meets a little girl on her way through the dark woods to deliver a basket of goodies to her grandmother. Through a series of cunning maneuvers, the big bad wolf ends up eating them both. The story of Little Red Riding Hood was kindling for an attitude that still sparks today. In 1922, Walt Disney made one of his first attempts at animated storytelling, a cartoon about this innocent girl and that evil wolf. Little kids with supple minds loved it. Disney was off and running. More fuel on the fire of myth that has been complicit in the decline of wolves across most of their former widespread range.
Today, wolves in America are limited to isolated populations from eastern Oregon across northern Idaho into western Montana, in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, some portions of New York near the Canadian border and across the upper Great Lakes from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula into northern Wisconsin and northern Minnesota.
In 1993, ten years before multiple sclerosis set in, Jay participated with several college classmates in a three-week study of wolf populations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The experience never left him.
* * *
I am a member of an interdependent pack. Margaux and me, the humans, Tilly and Mia, the dogs, were a four-pack of happiness. For nine and a half years, this pack roamed our home and neighborhood. Love and support constantly flowing in all directions without limit. It was fun and funny and tender with a lot of touching. Prior to their arrival in our home, Mia and Tilly spent four weeks together as rescues at the South Euclid Animal Shelter. Tilly, a pit and lab mix, and Mia, a husky mix, became fast friends. They were offered to us together as a two-for-one irresistible package. We could only say, “Yes!” It didn’t hurt that they were about the same medium size and strikingly handsome.
With a wolfish visage, Mia seemed at ease being number four in the social hierarchy, subordinate to her buddy Tilly who took her role as number three seriously. Once settled, both were content in their places. However, it didn’t start out that way. Early on, when I would call Tilly, she would come running right past me, and kept on going. For the first few months when I entered a room Mia would leave only to return later, slinking cautiously.
As time progressed, with persistent affection and three walks a day, inhibitions disappeared. The pack instinctively felt its boundaries. Life was good. It was so good that one day about five years in, Mia began to howl for the first time. Margaux and I looked at each other, thinking, “What’s going on?” Soon our vocals joined Mia’s. Tilly chewed a toy nearby, silently wagging in approval. With lips curled to create a round opening, we three would throw our heads back to merrily blast howl harmonies up in the air for minutes at a time. With repeated howl-fests our bond deepened. Mia became more relaxed the more connected she felt.
We grew to understand her varied howls to be expressions, each with a distinct meaning, a common one being joy in companionship. This is vividly demonstrated after we return from multi-day trips when she can’t get the howls out fast enough. The howls trip over themselves creating a string of spasmodic cackles that make us smile. The sound of Mia-love.
* * *
After thirty-eight years working for a variety of nature conservation organizations, it was time for me to retire. One of many reasons for retirement was that the crush of work had led to a loss of connection to friends. But how best to fill the new void? I felt like a little Lilliputian trying to turn the page of an enormous book to get to the next chapter in my life. Some extra oomph was required so I called for professional guidance.
A retirement coach put me through a rich six-week life discernment process called Third Third Ignited: Life Design for My 3rd 3rd. At the end, I had goals, action steps, and priorities. I was counseled to put growth, purpose, and connection in my life.
Opening the pages on this plan several years later, I see how it subconsciously guided my life. Within the plan, key motivators were identified under the categories of values, strengths, loves and people. People had three sections – 1. My close circle of friends, 2. Those whom I’d like to spend more time with and 3. Those whom I’d like to get to know. In the first section I listed seven people, the second section nine people, and the third section I listed just one. It was Jay.
* * *
From his hospital bed, Jay and I talk of wolves. As a college kid from suburban Cincinnati, he went to the far north for three weeks and learned winter survival skills – how to dress, how to navigate when lost in the middle of nowhere. Through class and field work, Jay learned about wolves, their behaviors and habitat. They tracked wolves from a small 4-seater airplane in Wisconsin but mostly around Ely, Minnesota, near the Canadian border.
Having discovered a moose kill through a harrowing plane ride in mid-January featuring air sickness within the closed quarters of a small cockpit, they set out on cross country skis to find the moose and see what they could learn. This massive creature had a severed spine, clearly the work of a coordinated wolf pack attack.
The site showed evidence of a suite of skills that make wolves compelling. Jay appreciates wolves for their high intelligence combined with a complex social structure that enables them to be highly protective of their packs and one another. They are in this together. Subordinate adults help to take care of the pups. When mates or offspring are lost, wolves grieve.
Jay laments how politicized wolves have become. Admittedly, they do kill some livestock that graze within their range. Government programs are successful at compensating affected ranchers and relocating wolves away from an affected ranch. In the Northern Rockies, anti-wolf politicians capitalize on myths to win points. They pick on the voiceless and defenseless and demand removal of protection wolves could receive under the Endangered Species Act.
A former high school teacher of Jay’s who retired to the Greater Yellowstone area sent him newspaper clippings which describe the contours of the wolf debate in this critical region for wolves. A classmate who sat next to Jay on the harrowing air sickness plane ride, served on the team in 1995 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began a wolf reintroduction project within Yellowstone National Park. When reintroduced, their impact was far beyond what anyone had imagined.
* * *
Though I had an entire career focused on protecting the environment, ironically, it wasn’t until my retirement years that I felt a strong urge to personally connect with the amazing diversity of life around me. Birds seemed a logical entry point. With the essential help of the Merlin bird identification app, I created a project for myself where every Monday is devoted to observing birds, both at home and at five natural areas within a fifteen-minute drive of my home. It has been an extraordinary experience. In the past year, I have met 172 species of birds including 130 species around my home.
Over this time, I exchanged pleasantries for over ten minutes with an adult barred owl resting on a branch only eight feet away in the woods of Forest Hill Park. I saw a flock of over a hundred tundra swans fly high in perfect V-formation through the dense mist of a cold February morning. I was dazzled by thousands of hooded, common, and red-breasted mergansers as they cheerfully dove into Lake Erie in January. I found fields devoid of red-winged blackbirds in December become filled with their chick-a-reee call in July. I heard the tiny, sweet tremulous hoots of an eastern screech owl down the street where I live far after sundown.
From the simple to the profound, the diversity of wild birdlife in my community has shown me more than I thought possible including an unexpected appreciation for the souls of birds. It was early evening in December. I was the only one walking through Lakeview Cemetery. From 93 million miles away, photons and neutrinos carrying light, heat, and energy were putting on a show. Glowing reddish-yellow-orange rays of sunset warmed the landscape and lengthened sharp shadows of bare trees. I looked to the top of a tall tree and there sat five American robins as if in a trance, silent, still, all facing west, soaking in last light of day. Further on, the upper dead branches of a massive tree posed as steeples. At the tippy-top of one sat a form with which I was not familiar. Up went my binoculars. With yellow legs and grey body sat a smallish but majestic raptor, a merlin, awash in the same energy that enraptured the robins. It too stood motionless, facing west. A crafty predator captured in evening prayer.
Another time while birding, my midmorning reverie was jolted by a phone call from Jay. His caregiver had not arrived, nor had they called or texted about their absence. This is a common, severe problem for Jay. Reliable, selfless caregivers are rare. He asked if I could come over and give him food and medicine. When I got there, he told me he has had over 110 caregivers over the past several years.
* * *
Our four-pack was together for the final time when Tilly passed away last September. Margaux and I grieved heavily. Mia grieved, too, for a while, a short while. About two weeks later, she carried a new “leash on life.” As the sole dog in the new three-unit pack, Mia’s personality began to emerge more fully, and her communication skills expanded. Walks were longer, just as she likes them. She became even more affectionate and more demanding.
For the past few years, to hit a personal reset button in the middle of Cleveland’s cold, drab winter, Margaux has taken a solo two-week vacation by the beaches of sunny Amelia Island, Florida. She left about a week ago. After two days of seeing her pack reduced to two, Mia felt the change, didn’t like it, and went to work.
Oftentimes, Margaux or I, in a little gesture of support and affection, will turn down the upper corner of the bedsheets for each other. From the vantage point of her dog bed near our bed, Mia had seen us do this hundreds of times. From her perspective, it was foolproof. One of us turns down the bed sheets, and before long the other arrives to go to bed.
On the second night of Margaux’s absence, Mia went upstairs before I did. About an hour later, I groggily entered the bedroom and stopped in my tracks, dumbfounded. Mia had experimented with a trick that surely should work in bringing Margaux home and reconnecting the pack to full strength. She turned down the sheets for both of us. On both sides of the bed, evenly placed with the middle untouched, the corners of the bed had been turned down, just like Margaux and I do it, albeit a little sloppily. On night three, she tried a different approach and only turned down Margaux’s side. Same thing on night four. When Margaux eventually returned, her rapid-fire howling tumbled into joyful cackling in no time flat.
* * *
We met for lunch outside at a Turkish restaurant on a sunny autumn day. Jay was driving then, an adapted van he dubbed “The Millennial Falcon.” He cruised up to the table in his high-tech wheelchair, smiling. I was eager to get his ideas on a course I wanted to create for our church. We first met a few years back while working on an electronics recycling event and other Earth Care projects at church. Having the same off-color sense of humor and similar interests, we had grown to enjoy each other’s company. A friendship emerged and soon blossomed.
The new course focused on the vast more-than-human portion of earth and our spiritual calling to be partners with all forms of life. With his extensive background as an engineer in solar and wind technology and a passion for nature, I thought Jay would be a terrific partner in such an endeavor. By the time the bill came, we were in it together, tight. This was going to be fun. The course, “Reconnecting with God’s Creation,” lasted five years before we chose to close it down.
The course became a thirteen-week deeply immersive experience for the ten to fourteen people who took it each year. Jay and I created a seventy-page course guide. For the first two years we met in person. Then COVID hit and we went to Zoom. The course included field trips, guest lecturers, videos to watch, weekly readings, and personal actions for each participant. They took turns leading a meditative moment to open each class, went on a Shinrin Yoku or forest bathing walk, monitored a personal place of observation and shared with the group what changes they found there each week, and they reported on “positive eco-news,” items in the news that described constructive changes to benefit sustainability, address climate change and stem the loss of species.
One of the unplanned but most lasting benefits of the course was the closeness that developed among classmates. The sharing of personal openings to the wonder and awe of nature created a bond. By the end of the last week in early June, each cohort wanted the class to continue. The shared learning was uplifting. Community was formed.
As part of the course, Jay gave an in-depth lecture in the opening class on the history and importance of national parks and other public lands. Near the end of the course, he gave a second lecture titled “Wolves in America: A Case Study of Ecological Restoration.”
* * *
On his thirteenth day in the hospital, I stopped in to see Jay again. We told stories, laughed, and shook our heads over the massive waste created by care-giving hospitals.
He said this was his first day with a fighting spirit. He had gotten some sleep. That helped. As we talked, sunlight filled the room and brightened his countenance. Facing the window, he looked west. Like the merlin on its perch, he too received nourishment from the warm rays of the setting sun. I sensed a will to keep living.
A social worker at the hospital is making progress in finding Jay a skilled rehab place where he can stay for a while and restore some strength. Chances are good he will be moving soon.
* * *
Jay’s lecture on wolves addressed the complicated relationship between wolves and humans. When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995, a key was turned, and a door opened to a great mystery. Though few in number, wolves were responsible for a remarkable cascade of changes that moved across the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem benefitting all forms of life. In their role as a top predator, their killing of life resulted in giving life to many other species.
In the seventy years without wolves, Yellowstone had become thick with deer. The deer were able to overpopulate and dramatically reduce vast areas of native vegetation. When wolves returned, they reduced the deer population. The deer wisely found survival more assured in areas without wolves, so they relocated to more distant regions. In their absence, vegetation returned and thrived. Bare mountainsides became reforested. Birds returned to inhabit the new growth. Then beavers arrived and built dams that became habitat for otters, muskrats, ducks, fish, and reptiles.
A wolf diet includes coyotes. As coyote numbers were reduced, rodents like field mice became more numerous, which in turn attracted raptors, foxes, badgers, and other rodent-eaters. As mountainside vegetation returned, regenerated shrubs provided berries which were advantageous to black bears.
There’s more. Wolves changed the physical geography of the region. With more vegetation, stream banks stabilized. With less stream erosion, more riffles and pools desired by fish were formed. Mighty rivers coursed in new directions.
Whether in Yellowstone or in your own neighborhood and home, when beings are connected in harmony to their surroundings, something amazing happens. Life becomes more vibrant, stable, and joyful. Life beckons us to howl.
Stephen Sedam resides in Cleveland Heights, Ohio along with his wife and their husky mix, Mia, who has been with them for over 13 years. As of this submission, he is 71 and across the span of his life, 51 years were spent in the company of dogs.
As this essay portrays, dogs are special as are their very close relatives, the wolf. Though now retired, Stephen’s career was devoted nearly exclusively to the protection of the natural world, either as an advocate, communicator, or fundraiser. Writing has been a passion since he was quite young. In his retirement, he began taking essay writing courses online. You can find him on facebook. This is his first published work.
He hopes you enjoy it.
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