Technically, Lucky was my parents’ dog, but I suppose I inherited ownership by my birthright. He was a good dog, a black lab, who was easy to spot as he danced around outside in the snow, jumping for joy when someone came out to play. I spent the first three years without any other siblings, so Lucky became my alabaster doll, my sidekick, my partner in crime. Even when my first brother was born, it was easy for me to understand that a playful dog was much more fun than a baby. And then one day, Lucky died. The front door was open and my mom was in the front yard. There had been a screech of tires on pavement and the sound of a car horn lingering in the air. And my dog was on the ground, lying on his side, breathing slowly. He couldn’t have been asleep, but I didn’t know why he wasn’t moving when his name was called. I couldn’t understand what was happening. I had never known anything to die before; I didn’t really know what the word meant, or what it entailed in the slightest. But that was it, that was death.
I know now that later the same day, he was put down because his body was crushed on the inside, and a recovery would not have been possible. It was not a shock for me at first, because I didn’t feel the full weight of his absence immediately. I thought it was like when my father went on a business trip and returned a week later. He wasn’t gone forever, because people just don’t disappear forever. But Lucky did, and it sunk in slowly that his dog collar and his water bowl were in the basement on a shelf for a reason; he wouldn’t need them anymore. That was the explanation given to me, that he wouldn’t need that stuff anymore; he wouldn’t need to go on walks anymore, he wouldn’t need things that I needed like food or a bed. And that’s how I came to understand what the idea of dead meant. That people and animals who had died wouldn’t need things anymore.
About the time my second brother was born, we moved house. We moved away from the small road parallel with the expressway where Lucky had been struck and away from his burial site in my backyard. And between then and now, I have experienced death and loss many times. My brothers, now three in total, have had pets their whole lives. It was a zoo and my brothers were the caretakers of these various creatures. They were all very cool and interesting, these pets, but I could never really see them more than I saw the animals at the zoo, just animals that someone else took care of. I can honestly say that I have never grown attached to an animal since. Every turtle, gecko, hamster, bunny, frog, fish, parrot, chameleon, gerbil, cat and even dog that lived in that house, I’ve never been excited to see them. And of course, some of them passed away as well, and of course my brothers would cry and have little burial ceremonies and read a haiku they had written, but they wouldn’t be phased so much as to not love the next pet as much as the first. And other people died as well, humans, which had reinforced my idea of death being a very real and irreversible thing to be explained by the body not needing anything else from this physical world anymore. Relatives and friends of the family, sometimes making about as much sense as the death of a puppy, passed and everyone grieved, but it became clear to me that this sort of thing happens. It just happens.
Now I know that some people get seriously depressed about loss, not limited to death. I’ve seen some friends get really messed up over the fact that their significant other has broken off a relationship or something of the sort. It makes me think of the saying ‘it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all’ and really try to sort this out. To have experienced a significant loss like I had at the time I think would qualify as a love and a loss, so now I am better off than anyone who has never loved at all. I am most certainly without a doubt not an outwardly emotional person. This simple truism can be observed throughout my life. I have lost friends and lovers, just like everyone has, but I honestly don’t think it has ever bothered me, nor will it ever. If to have loved and lost means living with immense desensitization, than yes, I believe it is better to deal with life wearing the realization of mortal relativity rather than going out believing in romanticism.
But is it possible to ever make a full recovery from something like that? I don’t know. All I know is that it’s sad. My dog died and it’s sad to think about it. It is still sad to think about every other loss I’ve had; my uncle Jerry who would cut my hair every three weeks, the father of one of my best friends, my grandpa whom had been around my entire life. But it doesn’t have the same weight as the first time I experienced it. Just think about the most recent breakup you’ve been through, and try to imagine it without the years of numbing that exposure to the real world has given you. I think that coming to terms with loss is necessary for humans to function, or else every time anything happens, it would be like the first ten minutes of a romantic comedy, when we are introduced to the bleak existence of the main character in desperate search of someone to fill the void in his life with. And that’s why most romantic comedies are movies and not real life, because Ryan Reynolds’s dog never dies in a way that reveals to him the reality of death and allows him to live life without regretting his first ex-girlfriend every morning.
pixelskylines
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
romaincrisis
amandla
gamechangershow
