“May be she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.”
― Stephen King, Pet Sematary
The first dog I had was named Tasha. She was a fox terrier. The curly, or wire-haired, type. She was adorable. She lived till the ripe old age of ten. When she went, it was the first experience I had with losing someone close to me. Yes, she was a dog. I do differentiate between humans and animals, but she was the first living creature I had seen every day from the age of two to pass. Now, at the age of twelve, I didn’t get to see her anymore. Pets do so much in a person’s life. For all the many years you live with them, they fill your days with happiness, laughter, and good times, good times.
At the end there is pain. But the pain you feel disappears just as Uncle Stevie wrote. The good memories begin. Tasha was a fun dog who let me dress her up in doll clothes and she would sit in the doll stroller. She had a lot of patience with me. As she got older, she gained weight (don’t we all?) and spent more time sleeping (don’t we all?). When her time came, it sucked. I cried and it made me mad that she couldn’t live forever. It was not the first time I had experienced death, but I hadn’t known the relatives who had died, they weren’t a part of my daily existence so I really didn’t notice (at that young age) any change now that they were gone. I noticed that my dog was no longer there.
Now that I’m older I realize that with the passing of the relatives, it does impact my daily existence. As each generation passes, you move up one. You take on new familial responsibilities. Perhaps not overtly, not things you notice every day, but overall you move up in the family tree. You have more branches growing and suddenly you are the one who is supposed to fill in the names in the book.
I think that’s why pets are a good thing for a family. They help you to learn about loving unconditionally and how to grieve when the time comes. It does not make the loss of a loved one any easier, but you have an understanding of the grieving process. You understand the feelings of anger, frustration, sadness. The experience of not being able to do a damn thing more than what you tried already.
Tomorrow the second dog I have loved will be with us no more. Brigs is twelve and has been in a lot of pain the past year or so. More than we probably realized, more than he may have shown until quite recently. And it is time. Our youngest is afraid of the growth on his head and our oldest recites a little mantra before he goes downstairs to visit him. It’s hard for me to look at this beautiful dog with the memories of his happy, fun life in my head while he struggles to stand up. Brigs hasn’t been upstairs for a year-he can’t handle walking up or down the stairs. He’s been on thyroid meds for five years and insulin twice a day for three years. There is a litany of issues this sweet dog has been dealing with but that’s not the part to focus on now.
Tomorrow we will learn about where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Like when he ate my husband’s underwear. Or ate the chocolate. Or ate his flea collar. Or ate half a dozen dog beds, including one that was obscenely expensive and guaranteed to be chew proof. He ripped that thing apart, stuffing everywhere, within twelve hours. I called the company and the very nice guy on the phone asked if the bed had arrived. I told him yes. He asked if my dog, Brigadoon (I splurged for the embroidered name if memory serves), liked the bed. I told him he thought it was delicious and did they mean it when they said it was guaranteed? He asked how long the bed lasted and I told him it didn’t make it through the night. They happily refunded my money. Anything he could eat, he did. Brigs still has an iron stomach. The rest of him just doesn’t work so well.
Once he ate the boys’ crayons. Very colorful poop.
He’s allergic to acorns. They cause him to have convulsions. He has never been able to enjoy our shady back yard because the two oak trees drop lots of acorns and he thinks the acorns are kibble. Silly dog.
We’ll think about the time the boys colored him with the red magic marker. We’ll think about the “puppy Olympics” he would do in the house. He would run from one end of the house to the other as fast as he could and jump up on the chaise at the one end. We had a perfect mold of his ass in the wall from where he slammed into it over and over again. I have the sheet rock to repair the wall. I’ve had it for over a year. Just can’t bring myself to repair it.
In their young lives, the boys have lost two cats. They have vague memories of the experience. When their grandmother, my wonderful mother-in-law, passed, we told them about it but didn’t have them experience the viewing or funeral. They were too young. Hell, I had nightmares for months after she passed.
It didn’t make sense. I loved her and we got along really well. Why would she be chasing me in my dreams? Had she not really liked me? It haunted me for months. My husband and I discussed what could be causing the nightmares but couldn’t come up with a reason that made sense. Then a few months later my husband called me from his dad’s house and he was very excited. He was helping his father close out the accounts and he discovered I hadn’t cashed my birthday check from my mother-in-law. Well, if there was one thing Mom couldn’t stand, it was an uncashed check. I found the check, cashed it, and bought some shoes in honor of her. Nightmares stopped.
Tomorrow the boys will have their first first-hand experience with death. They will be sad, frustrated, angry, and then hopefully happy as they remember Brigs as he was, not as the old, hurting dog he became. I will not let them read Pet Sematary, hell, I can’t read it anymore. Now that I have young sons, I can’t read it. I’ll read it again when they are older. But we will take Uncle Stevie’s words and embrace them. We will let the pain end and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.
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