As national flames flare over babies torn from immigrant parents, how public figures are treated in restaurants, some Christians viewing a president as God’s new Cyrus of Persia while others see a swamp turned into a septic field, death arrives. A beloved dog in our extended family dies. He has exuberantly pursued some creature into too small a space.
Shock and grief for many, young and old, is intense. Such a minor loss compared to the national furies over tariffs, taxes, environmental regulations, Supreme Court nominees, and so much more. Is the grief proportionate to the event? Multiple reasons for thinking so flood in.
We humans are built for the local. We connect with the day-to-day realities, relationships built not only of large things but also such small wonders as feet feeling a dog’s body under the blankets; coffee made just right not only for its own sake but as a ritual of love; the infant’s first latching of eyes, then grinning, then vocalizing enroute to first words; the monarch flitting around Joan’s flower garden so little yet laced with the milkweed on which the monarch lays eggs; fireflies so thick in tree fringes you need no backlit Kindle to read by their light.
We feel the depths of loss through the ripping of ordinary patterns and habits; the absence of the bark which made hens scurry up their run into shelter; the emptiness under the covers; the inability to share with my mom the hot dogs she was still thrilling to in her last weeks.
We feel the loss through remembering that once there was milkweed all over and butterflies in their millions; now herbicides kill the milkweed (and apparently decimate honeybees) and this year only that one monarch, not the clusters once routine, has appeared. We feel the sorrow as habitat destruction, light pollution, and pesticides threaten the fireflies whose lanterns guided many of us through childhoods in pre-development nights so dark we couldn’t see hands in front of faces until our eyes adjusted to the glimmers from fireflies and the now often-lost Milky Way.
When children are taken from parents, I’m horrified. Yet my path to the horror and the conviction that no country can morally do this starts with those local loves. My awareness of what a tear we make in the fabric of God’s universe when we separate children from parents, monarchs and fireflies and honeybees from their food and wellbeing, people from sustenance and respect and dignity, comes precisely from this: experiencing how attuned dogs and people are to each other; how beautiful the details of a nature in balance are; how intricate is the dance of eye contact, brain development, sound, touch, and layers of being and relating so deep awe and mystery mingle.
If we lose the ability to be tender with dogs, to have their deaths break our hearts, to share coffee and nurture each other from conception to birth through life to the fading years when hot dogs still offer bliss, to feel loss as monarchs dwindle along with the times we can read by the light of endless fireflies or see the Milky Way, then I suspect we’ll truly have entered our culture’s death throes.
So there is much more to love than a dog and much more to grieve than his loss. But he is one more reminder of why on finishing creation God, throbbing with pride and love and delight, saw that it was good (Gen. 1). And having death take him fills me with all the more passion to care about the things that matter before death takes us all.
As. usual, I loved everything. you wrote, Micheal, but the dog story was special to me because it brought back a very sad memory of my childhood. My family had gotten a dog, a small terrior, when I was a baby. Trixie, they named him, lived in the house and was part of the family. I never knew life without him. My grandparents lived within site of our house and grandpa had a small acreage which he took care of with his horses and wagon. Trixie loved grandpa as much as we did and loved racing down the dirt road to sit with Grandpa as he plowed the fields. But one day, when I was about six years old, I was playing in the yard when I saw grandpa driving up our dirt road, which was very unusual, as he never needed to come up that road with his farm equipment. he pulled up right beside the gate and very slowly with bowed head, he walked to the back of the wagon and lifted the still form of Trixie, obviously dead. His voice broke as he kept saying how sorry he was, that he was working in the field across the busy highway and in the dog’s eagerness to reach him, Trixie had run in front of a truck and was killed instantly. That picture has stayed forever in my mind, my grandfathers sorrow for having to bring us the sad news—Trixie’s still body, a body which was always moving, and suddenly the realization of the meaning of death hit my six year old mind.
Freda, what a heartrending set of images, your grandfather’s head and body bowed and laden with sorry, Trixie’s still body so painfully conveying the loss of that life filled with eagerness. Thanks for sharing.
I love it! – eating a hot dog in memory of loved ones! I can almost hear my Dad laughing at that one. When I was a teenager, Mom was taking care of Pop’s mother who had cancer. EVERY DAY she went to Grammy’s and Pappy’s house to do whatever needed doing. That left me to fix supper (and sometimes lunch) for Pop because he truly didn’t know his way around in the kitchen except to make his Postum. I had not learned to cook yet, but I could boil hot dogs! So that’s what we had most evenings that Mom wasn’t home. To Pop’s eternal credit – the only thing he ever said about the hot dogs was when somebody inquired about meals: “We’re eating a lot of hot dogs!” – said with the laugh wrinkles around his eyes in loud display!
Greta, Ann, Audrey, Melodie, thanks to all of you for your from-the-heart responses, which touch my own heart.
Greta, thanks for thoughts on empathy and compassion starting close home.
Ann, I hadn’t heard of your inheriting two grand-dogs from Hawaii. During this time that comfort is so important, I love the image of all those grand-dogs offering it. And comfort they do, as I know from experience (going back even to the crazy days when we had three Norwegian Elkhounds and two Shihtzu’s). Yes they know about loss. As do you.
Audrey, thanks for caring. I’ve skimped on details to give space for his owner to tell their story as they see fit, but the dog’s name was Carter.
Melodie, once upon a time many years ago the owner of Carter dreamed she had found a stray cat and when in fact this happened within days in real life, her parents yielded to the pleas for Lily to stay. She did and eventually Lily decided she was my cat and until her own eventual death taught me a love for cats I would have considered not part of my love language.
Thanks for noting your loss of your cat–and for the image of your dad’s loud wish for a hot dog. I like the connections we’ve made between our respective hot-dog loving parents and am reminded of the day I went to Red Front and ordered a hot dog specifically to sit there at the stand remembering my mom. If you like hot dogs, have one someday for both our parents, and if I see you I’ll pay you back.
I will love the excuse to indulge in a Red Front hot dog and remember your parents, and my dad. Mom is still going fairly strong at 94. No debt owed!
Yes, if we do not fully engage in the personal, we cannot understand the general. Empathy and compassion are learned close to home. Thank you for the depth of this post.
Oh, Michael, you have sparked the love for these two granddogs, Gravy and Ginger whose life in Hawaii was too complicated and they now are here to comfort me. They as well as the other two granddogs show they care when they see me. They know about loss.
Awww – just looking at the pix, I know he was a sweetheart and I’m sorry for your loss. What was his name??
Michael, we had to put down a cat last week so these things are fresh in my mind; but your little hot dog memories with your mother powerfully brought back my own father telling my mother on the very last Sunday when he was in church at North Goshen (he died the following Sunday) that he would like a hot dog for lunch that day. He made the request somewhat loudly. 🙂 The wish was granted. So was our wish that he not linger long in health care at Greencroft, with advanced dementia and kidney failure). Lasted just one week; we had taken him out of health care to go to church with family who were visiting, knowing Dad’s days were short. He would have loved everything you’ve written here: he had a heart for so many needs ’round the world. My thoughts today. 🙂