In this blog I've alluded a few times to the fact that I enjoy being a parent. I always wanted to be one. But, there's one aspect to parenting that I never really anticipated: dealing with death, in general. It's not a pleasant subject and I don't particularly like to talk about it in the first place. In this instance I'm not necessarily talking about the death of family or friends but an animal or a pet, which can be worse than the former - in some ways - for children.
As a kid, I experienced the death of pets quite often, now that I think about it and it was traumatic. I had a dog for a good part of my childhood to die from being runover by a car. I still feel sad about that. Another time, a couple of kittens decided to crawl into the engine compartment of one of our cars. I'm still squeamish about what happened then. Probably the worst was when our horse, Penny, was found dead. It's a little easier to arrange to bury a cat or a dog.
Throughout all of that, my parents were always so supportive. I never thought - before I had children - that I would have to deal with the death of a pet with MY kids - like my parents did with me. Well, I did this past weekend and it had quite an affect on me.
My youngest daughter decided she wanted to spend some of her change to get some gum. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, so we all decided to walk with her to the local convenience store a few blocks away. Our route was along a busy street into our neighborhood, but we didn't really think about it. Along the way, a chocolate lab pup we'll call "Brownie" comes out of nowhere and proceeds to follow us. We noticed she had a collar and tried to find where she lived. After an unsuccessful attempt at one place and not seeing anyone at another, we decided to continue the walk and allow her to tag along. We tried to coax her to walk in the grass as opposed to the street to avoid the passing cars. When we got to the store, the pup went right in with us. The store manager didn't seem to mind, but we decided to turn her out just in case she might decide to relieve herself or tear something up. We let her out and she waited at the door for just a second and then left.
After what was just a few minutes in the store, we started back home. I whistled for the dog, expecting her to pop out of the bushes or come from behind the store. We figured she may have taken up with someone else or just gone back home, so we started walking back, too.
In a matter of moments, after we hadn't seen her, I noticed something on the horizon that absolutely horrified me. I couldn't make it out, but it appeared to be a brown shape of some kind. I didn't say anything at first, but thought out loud "Oh God!" Of course the response from the girls was "Oh God, what?!" I said "there's something in the road." The girls looked and ran ahead. The next few minutes literally ripped my guts out. It was Brownie.
It was the most awful thing I'd ever seen (thank God she wasn't mangled). Only moments before Brownie was playing with us. We stood there on the edge of the street just looking at her. The girls cried for quite a while. Their mom and I were pretty choked up, too. Since Brownie wasn't our dog, we couldn't take responsibility for her disposal. We left her where we found her so that her rightful owners could find her. It was bad enough that she had followed us and gotten killed.
We walked home, arm in arm, consoling the girls. We spoke of how nice it would be to be able to turn back time. It would have really been nice if we could have right then. Eventually everyone calmed down. The owners apparently found their puppy and took her elsewhere.
That night before I went to sleep I was reminded of the fact despite the beauty we have in our world, there's also plenty of ugly to go around. It serves as a reminder that this world isn't all there is. There's another world where everything is beautiful - with no ugly. Until we get there, we'll likely see a lot more beautiful and some ugly, too. It kinda makes me wish and hope for that new world a little more. In due time, I'm sure I'll get there.
In the mean time, I look around at our pets and I think about our family members. I'm reminded in the short life of that puppy, Brownie, that life is precious. I need to enjoy them all while they're here.
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