WHAT IS IT THAT HAPPENS TO US

I got a call last night. A friend's dog, Elder Clara, had bloated and died. It was a call that was not entirely unexpected: Clara was almost 17 years old, and for a Basset that is a phenomenally old age. Way beyond anything we have achieved with ours.
But as with all calls like this, expected in some halfway house of our brains, we never REALLY think we'll get it. Somehow, things will go on as they always have. Nothing will truly change. The people we love will live forever: the children we cherish will be healthy and happy: the dogs and cats and horses and birds we cuddle and love and adore will go on and on, and the day of reckoning will not come.
Some of us, more realistic than others, know in our souls this is not true. We think we are prepared. We know the dog has cancer and will not beat it. But when the time comes, and the dog is stumbling or wailing in  sudden, unbearable pain, and we know the end is right there in front of us, close enough to touch, we are stunned. Stunned into freezing time: nothing moves.

What happened? What happened? An hour ago everything was fine and now-- nothing is right at all. How could it happen so fast? Was it my fault? Did I do something wrong? Did I miss a subtle sign, a change in the tectonic plates of the dog's health? What could I have done? Should I have waited or did I wait too long? I saw this coming: I never saw this coming. Someone else would have known, would have seen it, but I didn't, and the cost was too high to even count. No one could have seen it. I didn't miss a thing, I swear.....

Yesterday --was it just yesterday? They were Puppies with their Mother. How could he have been 12 today? Their Mother is gone, too-- and now this....

What happens to us? Why do our brains fry every time we lose one, even though we know the day we bring the puppy home that time with her is limited? And why didn't the earth stop and the cosmos come to a momentary standstill, and the birds quiet in despair? Do we love our human companions the same way?

There is a purity of the bond between dogs and people. It does not exist with other humans-- there is too much baggage. Too many disagreements, too many moments of anger and mis-match that does not occur with an animal. They are simply there, all the time, ready for almost anything, willing, happy to see you, eager to please, happy for a handout, never disappointed in a birthday present forgotten or angry at the Boss. Never unemployed: dogs and other pets have permanent positions in our lives. (I am not speaking here of the abandoned and the cruelly treated.)

So what happens now?
Slowly we pick up the pieces that yesterday was a complete life and today is shattered. Through the tears we remember something funny and giggle, and then feel guilty, but it was funny, wasn't it? And we go on. Never forgetting, with yet another hole in our hearts to try to fill in again. For some the pain is too great and they never have another pet. For others, having another is the only answer. We get through. But always there is that question: what happened? What on earth happened?

For those who have gone before: Walker, Quiller, Zelda and Mitchell. We never forget.