Avoid contact with those "black holes" who suck the life or meaning out of anything they discover makes you happy.
As an example.
Our sole remaining pet, Baby Kitty, who has been with us for 21 years is dying. I know it. My partner knows it. Our vet knows it. Sadly, she also knows it.
Growing up I spent most of my summer vacations from school at one of my many relatives' farms. As most people who have grown up or spent any amount of time on farms with livestock know, nothing good comes from giving names or becoming attached to animals raised for the sole purpose of being turned into our food.
Interestingly, none of my relatives with farms ever had any form of house pets. Not that there weren't a multitude of cats and dogs associated with the household who never made it inside the house. They were there, coming and going of their own needs and accord, but always outside, and in general never seemed to mind being treated like a pet if you were outside and they were around. Perhaps it's the nature of cats and dogs to want to please us by indulging us in what we see, and need, as interaction described as playing with them. However, we never had to see the "pets" die. Coming and going as they did we saw their many arrivals but never their one last trip, made alone, to wherever they found the peace and comfort to die outside of knowledge. This was a kindness.
I've learned though that seeing the final departure of a household pet is an unavoidable burden and something we owe to our pets for the years of enjoyment they have given us. Perhaps they know, perhaps they don't, that we are to be the instigator of their final end. If they do know I pray God he gives them the knowledge that we are motivated by love and not ill-will. Personally, I do believe they know they are dying and stay as normal as possible for as long as possible as a kindness to us in allowing us time to come to the point of being able to let them go.
I believe Baby Kitty knows because though she is very weak, sees very poorly, eats very little, sleeps much and plays not at all, she still allows me to comfort myself at night by taking her to bed with me and talking to her about how I remember her over the years and purrs just a little to let me fall asleep with her there, until I stop crying, whereupon she leaves me and seeks some other place she is more comfortable.
Anyway, that's the preamble. Here's the real post.
Some people in my family have the habit of taking photos of dead people in their coffins. I find this gruesome in the extreme, can't possibly understand why anyone should want to record for history this sadness for later review, rather than remember about these people those things we know and love. My mother took pictures of my father in his coffin. I was not particularly close to my father but think he would not have cared for this in the least. Without my knowing it, my mother took a photo of me standing in front of my father in his coffin while lost in a moment of private thought. When I saw it I was overcome with a sense of nausea I will never forget.
My mother also lost a pet of long standing. A dog she inherited from my father after his death. I am certain she loved the dog as much as I love Baby Kitty. She made the special effort to take her to one of the family farms to have her buried in a beautiful pasture that in Spring is covered in poppies and all manner of wile flowers. My uncle buried her in the ground and my aunt had a dogwood tree planted above the makeshift grave. Kindness, and ultimately very personal, it was a procedure certain to produce a kind memory in everyone who knew the dog.
Unfortunately, I wasn't there because for reasons of my own I refuse to return to the locations of my youth. So, to share the experience with me, my mother brought me photographs of poor FeFe, dead, in her cardboard box coffin wrapped in her favorite blanket.
I was aghast and completely at loss of words to say when I was shown the photographs. But, it seemed heartless to say so or let me feelings be known about photos of dead people or pets and so said something along the lines that the loss of a pet is always hard and always very personal and I'm sure the burial site with it's dogwood tree and rampant wildflowers was beautiful.
Two weeks ago I took Baby Kitty to the vet when she first showed signs of serious deterioration physically. She spent several days at the vet, at great expense, but was sent home after a few days somewhat the better for the care. I told my mother how happy I was to have her back home with us even if it was only for a short time.
My mother's sole comment to me was "you're going to lose here soon anyway you know."
The black hole she opened sucked all the love, life and simple happiness of having Baby Kitty back with me, even for this short while.
What has happened in these people that they can't be happy with sharing in my simple joy or at the very least remaining silent.
These are the people who suck the happiness out of our lives. Not with a great burst of suction on a siphon or one cruel, final blow, but in thousands of little sips of subtraction that good manners tell us not to confront.
Watch out for these people. Their actions may be unintentional, but they are as unfeelingly all consuming as a black hole in space sucking in and destroying even light - the most powerful of all the elements and forces in the universe.
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