One of our dear, dear clients, Pat Carroll passed away last week. Her daughter came in to let us know on one of my days off; a co-worker emailed me the news. I'm really glad that I wasn't there because the sadness was overwhelming. It felt like a light had gone out, I stood still and numb in the darkness. Sometimes I wish time would stop just for a minute so I could catch up, so I could process things and then proceed with a clearer understanding of the whys and what fors of life. The older I get, the less I understand anything, especially the whole concept of ceasing to be.
I worked this morning and had put the thoughts of Pat aside only to be drawn back in by a dog that was brought in for cremation. I try to be tender when I take the deceased pets from the owners; I can never really tell if they are ready to let go, to literally let go. When I took this little dog to the back and pulled back what had to be the softest ever snugly blanket, there he slept in a little circle the way dogs do but he had a rose tucked between his front paws, the blossom kissing his chin. I knew he was loved. He had to have been such a good little dog, you could just tell.
I don't know what happens or where we go, or if we go anywhere after we die. I ask the graves behind our house when I'm out back. They're all keeping mum on the subject. The body crumbles in on itself, that much I know. We do pet cremations at the clinic that I work at and after the cremations are done, the remains are brought back to the clinic in old galvanized metal pails. They each have a little paper with the doctor's wispy writing stating the name of the pet, "Scrapper" or "Molly" or whatever it may be. The bones need to be prepared, to be pulverized and made into the ash that will be returned to the owners in little burgundy velveteen bags. We talk about the cremains as if they were the living pet, "Is that Boomer in there? The owner just called and wants to know when she can pick him up." Great care is taken. They are affectionately tended to and that is some measure of comfort.
I see that same tenderness when people visit grave sites behind our house. One woman keeps a chair in the cemetery and she sits and crochets by a grave stone; another family makes several trips a year to pull weeds and add flowers to their dad/husband/grandpa's grave. They told me all about him one time; they couldn't say enough about him. This little band of family members buzzed around the headstone, they'd brought their own rakes and trowels.
The tending is nearly all we have to offer the dead; that and the space we make in our hearts, and the memories that we hold dear. Maybe that's all for us, the living. In some respects it just doesn't matter what happens to us after we die. Maybe the important thing is how we deal with death when we're living. Tending to the dead may simply be a way of working this mystery out. It seems to me that we don't work it out between us while we're still breathing. I should speak for myself, I know. I'm closer to accepting the death of a pet. I can't help but tell pets that that they were good friends, thank you and be brave, be peaceful. But it's harder with people. The simple things are harder with people otherwise I would have told Pat that I loved her too.
