The last two years have been a rather strong show of death. I have lost an Uncle and two very good friends of the family. And in the last 6 months, my family has lost 3 pets, two cats and a dog (which I found out about yesterday). Its seems as though Death wished to make some kind of statement.
Its not as though it is easy to forget about death. He's splashed across our movies and TV shows, perhaps as much as sex. We make fun of him, make him a joke, even glorify and try to figure ways to cheat. And yet when it comes down to it, there is nothing funny about death, no way to cheat. And when one losses a pet, it begs the questions of why we even have them. Most pets, at least dogs and cats, live a fraction of our human life. And even though my cat Pepper, who we had to put down early this past fall, lived almost 17 years completely with me as his owner. Out of 23 years of my existence, that cat was my friend, my comfort, and an existence dependant on me and my family. I cried hard when I had to put him down, when I buried his body in the hill behind my parents house. I even planted flowers, to blossom in the spring.
So today I find my thoughts turned rather morbid. Death. It is something that can never be too far from our mind, and yet, and yet we can not live in fear of that thing. I can not live in fear. So this is my goodbye to my dear friend Shelia, who so hilariously acted as second mother to my youngest brother, who hid in leaf piles, and killed our neighbors chickens. A dog who loved my family and slept on my brothers bed. If there is such a thing as a heaven for dogs, that's were she is.
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