Held Hostage

Don't roll your eyes. Don't look uncomfortably away. You don't have to understand. You don't even have to agree. But what you must do is allow me my own feelings. You do not have my permission to discount anything I have to say or feel on the subject of my pets, which I consider my four-legged children.

I do not ooh-and-aah over babies. I am simply not built for children. Babies do not move me. Not in the slightest. But you show me a basket of puppies and I melt into the floor, a puddle of sappy syrup waiting to be poured over piping-hot puppy pancakes, dripping over their little bodies like an invisible layer of protection. I love their soft, freckled, hairless bellies; their inability to contain their excitement as they crawl up and over and around me like an untrained circus star finally getting the spotlight; their sharp little teeth trying so hard to make a snack out of my finger; their pleading eyes that say, "I may be a shit sometimes but I will love you forever." I cannot walk into the Humane Society for that very reason. I cannot save them all. And that just about kills me.

I do not share the death of my "first born" with anyone but my wife. I don't even talk about it with her often. Yet I think of it at least once, if not ten times, every day.

I will not go into details. The details are private. They are reserved for darkness. For quiet. It is between us. When I strip away everything, it is the details that replay in my mind. It is the details that paralyze me into not moving on. The details are a place I cannot stay for long for fear I will not return for hours, even days. So, no, you cannot have the details.

What you can have is how it feels. My grief does not move in and out of me like vapor. It sits inside me, a sold mass, bumping into organs, clotting the blood into my heart, holding my thoughts hostage. It twists and turns me into something so fragile I cannot breath because I will break. It holds my hand tightly but offers no comfort.

I am not being dramatic or trying to garner sympathy. I do not need anyone's sympathy. It is, simply, very real for me. And if you do not understand it, I do not particularly care. Just do not treat me like my feelings are less-than because you do not value an animal's life the way I do.

When parents lose two-legged children, it means something. I am here to say that losing four-legged children means something, too. Their passing should not be casually dismissed. They cannot be reduced to cat, dog, bird, horse, etc. They have personalities. Behaviors. Little things only they do. It's unfair to patronize us when they die.

It's been four years since my beloved beagle died. There's little to nothing I wouldn't do to have one more day, one more hour, with her. I realize these thoughts get me nowhere but I cannot help to think of them. I miss her as much as I dare you to miss anyone.