I haven’t really thought about it at all- the death of my dog, Buster. When we got him he was old, and we had him for a long time. Occasionally while he was still alive I would cry because I knew I would have to let him go soon. Towards the end, it was such a fact we weren’t going to have him much longer there was no reaction from me except a mild shrug of acceptance of the inevitable. We set the date for putting him to sleep and drove him to the hospital. I didn’t feel much, I didn’t know whether I was handling it well or not, I just knew he was in a lot of pain, we were going to put him to sleep, and he was going to die. Just that, oh yes, and pick up some milk on your way home. It was something I accepted like the fact that I had to do the laundry.
I was worried it might upset me. It was the first week of high school and I knew this wasn’t a great way to start out. So if it had any chance of getting to me, the pain, any sorrow that might have hit, I gently pushed it away.
I didn’t cry, I didn’t feel too sad, I had gotten more upset about losing my favorite pair of pants. It occurred to me to call myself a monster, and that, I accepted as well with a calm nonchalant shrug.
We got to the vet, my mother, my friend Karen, and I, and we walked into the vet with Buster on his short red leash. Mom had to lift him out of the back of the car like she had to do for the past year or so because his hips were so bad. We walked in and filled out forms. They asked my mother whether she wanted the body to take home, or she wanted him cremated. I held buster’s leash and looked around the office. Mom’s first choice was to take the body home, so we could bury it. I was holding his leash and petting his head, his brown eyes looking up into mine, and we were already referring to him as "the body." I didn’t cry then either. We got into the small room, lifted him onto the cool metal table, and had him lie down. I was at his head, Karen at his back, and mom at his end, holding him steady for the doctor. I looked into his face and held his head, petted him.
That’s when I started to cry.
It just came out hard and fast, choking sobs I hadn’t known I was capable of in that situation. I cried as he breathed heavy and slowly stopped. I cried as I watched his side rise and fall and then come to a stop. I cried as I imagined I could still see his side rising and falling, and all I could think was how glad I was, they had given him the wrong barbiturate and he was still alive, I still had a chance to say another goodbye, and if that was possible, why, maybe it was possible he didn’t really have to die in the first place, we could take him back home and have him put to sleep at a later date. But I was wrong, he wasn’t still alive, and I realized it when Karen pointed out that she saw him breathing too, and the doctor said it was her imagination. The doctor said he might still move a little, just muscle spasms, devoid of life. It was so weird to stand there and watch his leg kick lightly and know it wasn’t him that was doing the kicking, his wetware had been eradicated and the hardware hadn’t quite caught up yet.
We went to the beach, Karen and mom were still more upset than I was. I cried a little more, because it was just the thing to do, not because my heart hurt so much it would break. I refused to ponder over whether I was a monster or not, and quite frankly, I didn’t care at the moment.
A life without buster seemed almost impossible. Just a world without him in it seemed too strange to think about. I entertained the idea that I was in shock, I had been before he died and turned it back on right after I stopped crying when I left the vet.
I expected to get upset later, when it sunk in. But I didn’t. I cried maybe a few times and got sad, but nothing hurt as much as I thought it would. I felt nothing. He died on September 9th, and I scolded myself for looking at the calendar because I was afraid the date would hold too many painful memories. His ashes were put into a metal tin and displayed in the glass wall unit in my living room, and I sat there and looked at t pictures of him and felt nothing. I asked mom when she was going to let him go and she said she didn’t know. We searched around for a better looking container for him, the tin was boring. Mom found one that was too small for all his ashes, and moved some in there and kept the rest in the other tin and put it in a cabinet. I accidentally opened it once when looking for an extension cord, said hi to buster, and closed it. Then I went on to looking for my cords. And still I felt nothing. The only reaction was a mild humor at the fact that we had my dead dog split into quantities in various cabinets. Only once had I called for him, months after his death, forgetting he wasn’t going to come. Only once I got mixed u and called my other dog by his name. I woke up the morning after his death not with a disbelief, just the knowledge that yes, Buster is dead, and there never was any question over whether it was all a bad dream.
And now, I’ve just thought about it, over 2 years later, and I close my eyes and see his head cradled in my hands, trusting, I think he knew what we were doing, he didn’t seem to mind. I started crying again, and I felt, I felt sorrow and I felt pain and I felt all the things accompanied, I was glad, I was capable of emotion, I wasn’t a monster like I thought I was. Then I thought about the kids who lose their parents, people who lose the people they love, parents who lose children, and I felt nothing again. I told myself it was foolish to compare Buster’s life to another. Life is Life, regardless of the relationship. But it was too late, and I opened my eyes, and again, I felt nothing.
12/29/98