Losing a Pet is a Dress Rehearsal for Other Loss
Lama Rod Owens reminds us that when we grieve for someone, we feel the pain of the loss of our own identity, who we were when our lives were inextricably intertwined with whomever or whatever we lost.
Let's soak in this a moment. We question our identity because who we are is so connected to who we've lost or what we've lost. We lose a little of ourselves when someone or something goes missing. Owens says, "Our mourning helps us also deal with the loss of anyone or anything, whether it be people, capabilities, or simply less stressful times." I'm in mourning, but my current losses are complicated and complex for even me to process, so why would I tell you? I may. When I figure them out, but for now, I'll share a simpler, bittersweet loss: the loss of a pet.
For years, I had identified as Carina’s mom. I’d been that person with the cute little dog, the seven-pound wonder. Although not a water dog, she was photographed at the beach on a skateboard, wearing an orange life vest on a fishing boat, bravely floating in a neighbor’s pool, caught mid-stride, all four legs aloft while flying-running on the sand. She wore a participant number at the Rotary 5k Turkey Trot; she posed with great dignity atop a Steinway; and she was as patient with excited toddlers in the park as she was with our friends at a skilled nursing facility.
My dilemma? Now that Carina is no longer with me, I no longer have an automatic conversation starter to describe myself, no built-in buffer, no more idle talk or opportunities to delve deep into issues, anything from…
“Don’t look at me like that; I don’t understand cryptocurrency either.” to
“How do you like your new playlist? The 174 Hz Sound Bath is for pain.”
Near the end, it was a lot: daily prescriptions, .25 ml of this, .5 ml of that; mixing anything I could think of into her homemade dog food; begging her to eat; breaking freeze-dried minnows into even tinier pieces and burying them under her food, one of the few games that still brought her joy. For some reason, in the weeks preceding her death, she would only chow down if her food was taken out of her bowl and spread around her placemat, so that became our mealtime ritual, anything to keep her going. Every day, I tried to help her find what might bring her peace of mind in the late afternoon when she would get the blues and couldn’t get comfortable. The vet had given up. We needed to let go. It was a lot. For her. For me. For us.
Yes, there is this hole, but there are also these happy memories that remain. Just this week, in fact, our chief limericist, Larry, came up with two new ones:
Carina once went to the beach. She thought it was good, like a peach. She rode a skateboard, which she really adored. To go back, she did us beseech. Carina went down to the sea. She took off her leash and was free. She flew through the air, with nary a care, was as happy as any could be.
Carina died in 2023, and I introduced her successor last week in Massimo, the Maltese, so why am I still writing about her? Almost every week, someone I know or a post I read talks about the loss of a pet. The experience is universally painful and wrenching, and here is what I think.
We lose spouses, siblings, children, and parents, and those losses are so huge we can barely recover, so huge that they teeter on the incomprehensible. My heart goes out to you if you are in that fresh grieving space, or perhaps your loss isn’t recent, but it is still disconcertingly raw. I still grieve for my parents, and I often think I wish I’d asked this or wish I’d said that. In Dear Mother I wrote how I wish I had been nicer to my mom. In Experiencing the Death of a Parent I second guess how I could have been more there for Dad when he needed me most. Losing my parents was wrenching. However, I only lost them once, thank god.
Carina was the fifth dog I’ve “lost,” but here’s the thing. Those losses had less baggage than the loss of the humans I love(d), so there was a sweet innocence that touched differently. There are fewer regrets with a dog. Dogs don’t remember that I lost my temper and said stupid stuff. I’m not reminded of my imperfections with dogs, and there’s something about that unconditional acceptance that touches me unconditionally, and that’s why, within a few months of losing Carina, I signed up for more with Massimo.
What losses have affected you and are still affecting you?
I didn’t record this week. Did anyone miss it? Let me know in the comments, please.
See you next week, my friends. Stay safe.
Okay, now I'm going to have to tell you all about Gus, the big gray kitty who saved me from depression in 1999. He was my kitty. We had him for 17 years and he was so sick in his 17th year, we had him put to sleep. That was 2016 when he died and my heart broke. I saw him in every shadow in the house, heard his pad pad pad through the hallway. And I swore I'd never love another cat again...
but now I have 2 cats. It's not the same, but loving and caring for our animals is as intense as raising children.