The death of a beloved pet opens doors to deep emotions | ChristensenHolly Christensen, Akron
On a autumn day 40 years ago, I was filling up my Ford F-150 when a man on the other side of the pump said, "That's a good dog you have there." My shepherd mix, Goldie, was standing on the bench seat with her head sticking out of the open window. I had been rubbing on her face and ears as I waited for more than 30 gallons of gas to flow into the truck's dual tanks. When I looked at the man, who was probably in his fifties, I found a face with two sad eyes.
"We had to put our old dog down yesterday. Love 'em up while you can cuz it goes too fast," he said and quickly got into his car, his emotions overtaking his composure. Though Goldie was only 3 at the time and had many years of life ahead of her, the man's genuine grief has stayed with me.
I've heard people describe crying harder after the death of a pet than that of a parent. But all human relationships are complicated because humans themselves are complicated.
Animals are quite simple and straightforward.
No matter how successful a person, how physically attractive, what political party or religious affiliation − or myriad other categories we humans use to judge each other − animals fully accept us just as we are. So of course their deaths open doors to deep emotions, including those we might not frequently let ourselves feel.
Roger Angell wrote his essay "This Old Man" in 2014 when he was 93. In it he describes, among other memories, the death of his beloved fox terrier, Harry, who jumped out a fifth-floor apartment window one stormy day. The dog's sudden death released a capacious grief for Angell and his wife:
"When Harry died, Carol and I couldn’t stop weeping; we sat in the bathroom with his retrieved body on a mat between us, the light-brown patches on his back and the near-black of his ears still darkened by the rain, and passed a Kleenex box back and forth between us. Not all the tears were for him. Two months earlier, a beautiful daughter of mine, my oldest child, had ended her life, and the oceanic force and mystery of that event had not left full space for tears. Now we could cry without reserve, weep together for Harry and Callie and ourselves. Harry cut us loose."
I read the Sunday funnies every week − only one has ever made me cry. In his usually biting comic strip "Pearls Before Swine," cartoonist Stephan Pastis told readers in the first panel that he and his wife had to put down their dog, Edee, because she had cancer. He then describes the ways in which Edee was a superhero before ending the strip with: "Edee's heart was in the right place. Which is why ours hurt so much now. So run, Edee, run to that beautiful field where you always receive the love and affection you gave."
Pastis is a favorite cartoonist of my youngest son, Leif.
In Leif's 16 years, several of our pets have died. When he was 3, Leif tried to wake our long-haired black cat named Baby who, curled up with his tail over his face, appeared asleep. I scolded Leif for bothering the cat, then realized something was very wrong. When I told Leif that Baby was dead, he asked, "Does he need new batteries?"
Like many urban neighborhoods, mine is full of feral cats and for three summers in a row, litters of kittens were born under my front porch. Each time, I lifted a section of the porch's lattice and sent little Leif into the cramped space to retrieve them. We found homes for most, but also kept several. Leif's father has two from the 2017 batch and Cuddlebug, who was born in 2018.
An orange tabby like a certain cartoon cat, Cuddlebug became hefty in adulthood. An unusually quiet cat who slipped nonchalantly around the house, he took immediately to the German shepherd pup, Otto, we brought home when Cuddlebug was 1. Frequently curled up together, the giant black dog often used his equally giant tongue to groom the fat cat.
Last month, Cuddlebug seemed to come down with a cold that didn't go away. After a week, we noticed he was also losing weight. Leif and his father took the cat to the vet and were told after an X-ray that he had a mass in his throat. There was no reasonable way to treat what was likely cancer. Pain medication and oxygen had made Cuddlebug happily comfortable the last minutes Leif spent with his kitty before the vet administered euthanasia drugs.
Leif has long understood the reality of death. Like all my sons, he still misses his grandfather who died two years ago. Cuddlebug's death, however, hit him harder than any previous pet loss. From the moment he pulled the wee kitten out from under the porch, Leif's been witness to the entirety of that animal's all-too-short life, which is why my boy's heart hurts so much now, a pain all pet lovers can understand.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: The death of a beloved pet opens doors to deep emotions | Christensen
Source: Nature
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