Reality felt like a cement block crashing into my head. Homer hadn't eaten regularly for three weeks. He'd barely wanted to take walks. I'd been keeping myself afloat by saying it was just a stomach bug of some sort and he'd be getting over it soon.
I didn't want him to sit here like this all day, conscious but unable to move. My sister, mum and I were all home for the holidays. (I'd arrived only a few days before.) We took Homer to the vet. I drove. My mum sat in the passenger seat, cradling him in a scarf to keep him comfortable. Midway en route, I noticed he'd opened his eyes in full, looking like he was still figuring out what was going on. They were his trademark black little marbles, shiny, wide and innocent. Maybe it wasn't his time after all.
I clung to that shard of hope for a while when we got to the vet and waited in the exam room. For a few minutes, Homer was his old self. He got up on the floor a few times and walked around. He did his trademark rapid doggy shake and bake, which always prepped him for a long walk or helped get water or debris off his body. Except now we were in a spotless and nondescript exam room, and reality again smacked me hard. I seized only on the essential phrases coming out of my vet's mouth: "poor quality of life," "in pain," "organ failure," "poor teeth," all enough to know what it all meant.
We were told that we could have as long as we needed with him before the procedure started. When the door closed, my mum said she wanted to hold him to make him feel calm. All of us - Mum, my sister, myself - got down on the floor. We were scrunched together in a circle and took turns petting him. He was calmer than any of us three, eyes starting to close again. I was a much bigger mess. Every time I tried to do a sustained tummy rub or scratch a little under his chin, the tears and the wails came out.
When it was time for Homer to go down the hall to get his IV inserted, I darted to the parking lot. A half-hour passed. I worried something had gone wrong and that Homer was in pain. An hour later, my mum and my sister finally came out. They said nothing had gone wrong, and that they had stayed with Homer a bit after he had passed, silently sharing a final quiet moment with him before leaving him for good.
We drove home and barely said a word.
My day job is in academia. I teach and research about big societal ills, from growing inequality to the corrosive effects of racism to environmental catastrophes. Seen against all that, grieving over a dog seems like an indulgence. "He's just a dog," as so many non-pet owners have said to me over the years.
When someone loses a pet, don't say, 'It's just a dog.' It's not.
Yeah. True enough, I guess. But then why do I - and so many dog and pet owners like me - grieve over the Homers of the world the way we do? Why do we see them as our best friends, as family members, as "people" whom we love as much and no less than our closest human companions? It's a question that's confounded the pens of Jane Goodall, E.B. White, John Steinbeck and so many others who have meditated on the pet-human relationship.
My own modest contribution to all this? For me, "there's more serious stuff going on," or "they're not human," are precisely the reasons we grieve so much. Our bonds with our pets are our mental sanctuaries. Homer was my refuge: my reminder that however much pettiness, betrayal or bad faith that I - or people around me - might exhibit from time to time, there is such a thing as basic goodness. It emanated from him in episodes like all those silly moments that raced through my head in his final hour.
That's how I accept the depth of my feelings for my deceased dog. He was just always there. He spent so much time looking after me - without even knowing it - that I returned the favour, even after he passed.
That evening, I asked my mum: "Did he look scared right before he was put down?"
"No," she assured me. "He was very peaceful and calm. He just closed his eyes."
Good dog.
