My family lost our four legged friend Nala yesterday. As she aged it became harder and harder to ignore that she was reaching the end of her life with us. The hardest part about a pet is that they are with you, in some ways invisibly, every day doing what they do.
She came into our family and we became her pack at a time when my daughter needed a four legged friend. It had been over a year since we have moved back to California and over a year since we had lost two boxers (Whitney and Gurgi) to the cancer that often occurs in that breed. We had been putting off adding a new member because my wife and I were busy with work and parenting and life and taking on the responsibility of raising a new four legged puppy seemed like more than we were wanted to commit to at that time.
Then, driving home from a family vacation, a message on a mailing list popped up about Nala, a 5 year old Catahoula Leopard Dog who needed a good home caught our attention. We met with her and she was sweet and my daughter immediately connected to her. So that was that and she joined our family and we became her pack. One interesting thing we later learned is that she wasn’t a full Catahoula. She was probably a 1/2 lab mix because as we later learned full Catahoulas can be very intense.
She wasn’t perfect and she didn’t like being left alone. She was a master at finding people food on plates and snacking on it. THe only way I know this is that in photots of people at parties she can sometimes be seen in the background helping herself to the occasional burger or hotdog off of a plate that is within reach. She was an excellent trail breaker and maker and made sure that any and all delivery vehicles were aware of the property boundaries loudly and consistently, often much to my chagrin as I sighed and had to find headphones so I could keep some of the ruckus out of my meetings. Later as she slowed down she learned to charm the delivery folks so they would give her treats. This was after she passed on the patrol duties to the next generation.
The hardest thing, for me, about being privileged enough to live a good life is accepting that there are hard, emotional parts during the cycle. It’s not just death that is sad. It is watching the slow, inevitable decline of a body that struggles to do what it loves. To keep to a routine long after being mentally or physically able to. It’s hard accepting that there is comfort in having the privilege of family (or your pack) assist and maintain your routine as long as possible. It is even harder accepting that a day will come and bring death with it.
Acceptance of the life cycle as it is in its purest form is comforting on many levels. One of them, is that life doesn’t stop. It moves ever forward, with or without us. But, unique to humans, we are able to carry our memories with us. In my memories of first experiences, pets loved, family ties and so much more during my time with Nala i’ve been lucky enough to add not quite pictures, not quite videotapes of her that will move along with me as long as I walk my path. Maybe these started as neuronic connections wrapped in myelin sheaths. Maybe they are something more, something inside the brain so complex that we don’t understand it yet. All I know is that I’m lucky enough to have a good life and that the time with Nala and these memories are part of it. And that means accepting it.
