Hey Dad....
Ya know how I tend to blame myself when certain people I know die? Well, about the only person I do that with anymore is Andy Harris and even then, somebody, I forget who (probably Paul, maybe Andy's son, Rich) came up with this really excellent point about the whole thing, proving to me once and for all, unarguably, that Andy's death wasn't my fault. I reeeally wish I could remember what that point was, because maybe it would apply now and in the other cases I'm about to cite.
I'm hoping that by finally exorcising these things, telling the world, as it were, just what a despicable fuck I am for what happened in these cases that maybe, just maybe, I can finally start to believe I'm wrong about that... you know. How horrible I really am? These things eat me ALIVE. I ask God every time they cross my mind to please make it stop, I'm sorry, please help me... and he usually does. But, now... every time I'm not sitting here typing, either doing a post or IM-ing, I can't get past all these things this time. The list is officially too long now and I really need forgiveness. I'm just not sure whose. If mine, I'm not sure HOW. Not even Stephen King, book or movie, keeps it away. Only contact is doing that this time. And, slightly (safely?) distant contact with people, at that. If there is any way to minimize the tears, it's by other forms of communication than face-to-face. Right this second, close contact with even Eric, maybe especially Eric because he's who he is to me, it just makes me fall apart all over again. Hell, even this way is killin' me, but I have "lucid" periods, at least, this way, where I do stop crying (tears as big as horse turds *smile*) for a few minutes. Anyway... every time something like this, fatal like this, happens to one of my animals, I wind up re-living every other one who has died since back when I was at Wellacrest and had to get rid of my dogs. A part of me hates Wally for that. That, with the dogs, I do NOT forgive. Him, or me... so far. That's why I decided to do this. With most things that bug me, once I vent it here, it either goes away for a good long while or it goes way for good. I'm praying for "for good" this time. Holy shit. It just occured to me that this, what I'm hoping to achieve, might be called a "catharsis". So, I looked it up in my handy-dandy American-Oxford and lo! and behold, it's the third definition... "3. the relieving of a neurotic state by reenacting an earlier emotional experience..." Yes. That's exactly it. So, while I wait for my beloved to finish making his morning rounds in his quest to find his clothes, coffee, radio and self so he can go milk, I'll explain the manner in which I'm gonna do this. Usually, when I'm writing, it's not to any specific person. Depending on what I'm talking about, I do have a person or two in mind, maybe, especially if I know what they look like. But, for the most part, unless I start a sentence with yer name, it's "to" whomever. This time, for me to feel as safe as possible, I'm going to do this as if I'm talking to Dad. That's for several reasons, not the least of which is, while Dad doesn't share my belief that animals are cooler than people, he does understand it in me and does, somehow, find ways to make me end up giggling. Plus, "dad-hugs" have the power to make the hugest pain diminish, and my God do I need one of them now. I can remember once, when I was a kid, a dog of mine got hit out on Greenwich Street and I went nutso. I wanted to put a huge ad in the paper telling whoever did it "Great job, you dog murderer!" and my Dad made me laugh then too. I forget his exact words, but it was the first time I ever heard the phrase "brain the size of a hamster pecker" used in a sentence. His point being that the (probably) old lady who hit the dog had a brain no bigger than that in the first place and in the second, therefore, would not get the point. So, telling this to Dad, with the door open to anybody else who has a thought on the subject, of course, seems like the thing to (quit EXPLAINING, damn it and) do.*deeeep breath and a handful of tissues*
Man, suddenly, I'm freezing... and trembling.
Anyway... Not long before I moved to Gloucester, I "met" a dog in a liquor store down the street from where I was living. I'd walked down there with a friend of mine and went back a few times, just to see the dog. Finally one day, the guy in the store says to say goodbye to her, cause he had to take her to the pound. She came home with me, instead. She'd been abused by someone, was starved half to death and didn't really like ANYBODY, except me. She joined the other, I think three dogs I had then and all was fine. I moved into one of Wally's houses. Unfortunately, it was the one next door to his anal retentive nephew, Kenny. (Yet another reason I so hate your troll, Mad Mikey... another dickhead Kenny. Gah.) Because of HIM, I had to keep the dogs down the road at their other farm, so their barking wouldn't wake up Kenny's satanic spawn. This did not work out in a satisfactory manner. Not only did the people living at the other farm not appreciate hearing the barking, the dogs kept getting out of the for-shit pen that was there. The last time they got out, that one dog, the one from the liquor store, "went after" Wally and I wound up having to take her and one or two other ones to the pound that day. The others had to go after they got out of the next pen we had for them, which again, Wally made me have so far from the freakin' house we had to DRIVE the food and water to 'em. They managed to get out of there only a few times, but one time too many and one of them, didn't know who, killed a neighbor's turkey. (No, not Kenny's. That tightass only had one dog whom he screamed at constantly.) When a dog does that, it's his ass, I know. It was, too. Except for Mickey. He got so desperate to follow me back to the house one night before that, that he climbed outta the pen from OVER THE TOP and tried to come to the house. He got killed on Rt. 77, instead. Flung into Kenny's lawn, in fact. Then, there was Bo. He was a cat I'd had for 10 years. I got him from my Uncle Henry (Kroll) before HE died. Bo was 10 and starting to get a little soft in the head. He would NOT stay in the house. No matter what I did, he'd find a way outta that old farmhouse. He didn't come back this one time. I kinda figured he'd maybe gone off and died somewhere, like animals do, but, I still kept looking for him every day, anyway. I found him. He fell in a partially uncovered well and drowned. I was horrified and still am. I can and have imagined his last moments of life more times that I can even begin to count. I FEEL IT. It's just as real and immediate now as then. I still hate myself for not finding him in time. For not... what? Duct taping him to the wall before I went to work? Probably. All I know is that it's my fault. Just like every single one of those dogs who loved me. Trusted me. Whom I let down. It hasn't stopped since I've gotten here, either. I'm not even talking about all the cats, rabbits, cows and such. But, there have been several animals here who've died, that I can't seem to get over. One was my goat. Remember the goat I bitched about endlessly last winter? Well, Eric found him this spring. He was dead, like I knew he was. And, in a manner of speaking, it was, indeed, Bill's fault, but, it's not only somehow mine too, but the WAY he died is so unbearably brutal, I just couldn't bear to even talk about it. Bill always bitched that the poor thing smelled bad. Honestly, I loved his musky odor. (Keep in mind I also love the smell of fresh cow shit, puppy breath, skunk musk- but not too "up close"- and Copenhagen Long Cut, among other things. When I say he didn't stink, I mean he didn't stink. Especially next to those dumpsters out there in the driveway, BILL, but that's a whole nother post...) Anyway, Bill made us keep Tiny no less than about a quarter mile from the house. He was lonely back there, I'm sure, being all alone like he was. He must have seen the sheep and wanted to meet her, because he got loose and went to cross the manure pit. It had a crust, but it wasn't the same thickness all the way across. Can ya see where this is going? Do I have to say right out what I allowed to happen to my poor goat? Because I can, ya know. I can describe in GRAPHIC DETAIL what he went through. I know because I've seen it, lived it, dreamed it and been torn apart by it every single day since Eric found him floating in the pit this spring. The other goat we got at the same time as Tiny got crushed to death by Bill's oversized pig laying on her in their shed. Then, of course, there are the cats, rabbits and cows, et al, that I've related here as they happened over the last year. Ya see why I maybe got a little crazy when THIS cat got killed?Ya see why I can't forgive myself for any of those horrifiying endings I let take my babies? (Oh, I was doin' good til just now... here I fuckin' go again...) They deserved better than they got. So did my cat last night. They all deserve better than ME for a caretaker if I can't take any better care than THAT, right? Of course. Fuck Mom, ya know? It's no wonder I feel like I do about myself, feeling like I do about animals and having this kinda shit keep happening. Mom's bullshit is NOTHING compared to this. All she did was fuck a few of my boyfriends. I let my animals down. That is waaaay worse. God, I hate me right now. All that poor little cat wanted last nght was to be outside because that's where we had been and would be back to. She wasn't 10 feet from the hitchin' post when she died. Right where we'd have come back to her, if she'd been allowed to live. My fault again, you see? MY FAULT. I fully expect and feel I deserve to go to hell for all this. How am I gonna be able to look God in the eye, like yer supposed to gonna have to, and explain THIS SHIT, what I let happen to the gifts he gave me? How do I do that? How do I explain it to me, even? This is mostly what death would be better than, by the way. Feeling like this 24/7 for endless years. I know what I am and I can't stand it anymore. I am an animal-letting-down piece of shit who should never have been born. Honest to God, honest to God... Please God, let this be the last time I go through this... Make it hurt all Ya want, if Ya have to, but just please let it be the last time. Just so You understand what I'm asking for... not that no animals of mine will ever die again. I know that's too much to ask. I wish it wasn't but... I just need peace, if it's there to be had. Please. Let them know again that I am still sorrier than I can say. Let them know I still love them all and I can't wait to see them again. Let them know for me til I can tell them myself that I was richer for having known them and I love them for that and I ache for them still. Ask them to forgive me, please, God? Maybe if I can know somehow that they can or have I can start trying to forgive myself... with Your help, if Ya would be so kind.... However Ya wanna do this, I just can't carry it anymore. Hell, kill me if Ya have to, just make it stop, okay?
And, before I forget, thank You a million times AGAIN that it wasn't Eric or my Dad. Thank You. Now, please heal me.... Okay.... Dad. If you see this, please say anything or call, okay? I need to go to bed from last night, still, but I'm kinda scared of that yet. I don't want to have any dreams... maybe later. I don't know. I just hope this works... I need to let this all go. Please.
Comments
1
You are not in the slightest responsible for the demise of any of your animals, you nitwit. If all the cancer doctors in the world thought like you do (and they don't, because , if they did, that would mean they didn't have enough brain-power (or emotional stability) to have attained the status of doctors.) All the kids that die of cancer (or any other disease) live longer than they would have because of the doctors and the care they give.
All the strange, lost,orphan animals you have taken in and tried to help all-ALL lived longer and happier then they ever would have if they hadn't met you. In this world, God's plan allows for a huge surfiet of animals (including such unloved 'animals' as ants,termites,ticks, shit-eating beetles, eight million spieces of fish and fowl to serve as food, and pets,for twenty million other types of animals, including animal loving Stevies. The vast majority of these living organisms are turned into preditor poop every hour of the day. And animals, even
those a little higher on the old IQ scale, have the brains of a ten to twelve month old child. These animals, including the children, would all be dead before breakfast next Tuesday, except for luck, and-here's where you and all the animal and child lovers come in-the love of protective
owners or parents. Of all the nine hundred jillion animals that are born every day and die
every day, .0001% are lucky enough to run into someone like you who, with their care and loving, can extend the life of these lucky pea-brains for
days, weeks, and months. In animal lives, that equates to YEARS! Every freakin animal you ever had lived 20% to 300% longer because of YOU!
All animals croak (frogs more often than others),
with their shorter than my dick life expectancies
and you,me, God, or George Bush can't do anything about it. It seems to you that your animals die all the time (well they do, that's how they're designed, like our great consumer products..)but that's because our live span is so much longer than theirs that we can outlive six consecutive
12 year old stinking cats. You happen to be a nut-
case who loves having animals around and caring for them. But you have to use your brain...You will out-live all you animals but the last cat you have when you're ninety-seven. They will fall into wells, be eaten by larger, meaner animals, run over by cars,tractors,trucks and even bikes. You can't do anything about it but what you do every day...extending their lives with your love and care far beyond what their lives would have been if you weren't there!
Don't let your love of animals turn your brain to mush. You are a savior of animals, but you don't need to be crucifying yourself.
5
You are not in the slightest responsible for the demise of any of your animals, you nitwit. If all the cancer doctors in the world thought like you do (and they don't, because , if they did, that would mean they didn't have enough brain-power (or emotional stability) to have attained the status of doctors.) All the kids that die of cancer (or any other disease) live longer than they would have because of the doctors and the care they give.
All the strange, lost,orphan animals you have taken in and tried to help all-ALL lived longer and happier then they ever would have if they hadn't met you. In this world, God's plan allows for a huge surfiet of animals (including such unloved 'animals' as ants,termites,ticks, shit-eating beetles, eight million spieces of fish and fowl to serve as food, and pets,for twenty million other types of animals, including animal loving Stevies. The vast majority of these living organisms are turned into preditor poop every hour of the day. And animals, even
those a little higher on the old IQ scale, have the brains of a ten to twelve month old child. These animals, including the children, would all be dead before breakfast next Tuesday, except for luck, and-here's where you and all the animal and child lovers come in-the love of protective
owners or parents. Of all the nine hundred jillion animals that are born every day and die
every day, .0001% are lucky enough to run into someone like you who, with their care and loving, can extend the life of these lucky pea-brains for
days, weeks, and months. In animal lives, that equates to YEARS! Every freakin animal you ever had lived 20% to 300% longer because of YOU!
All animals croak (frogs more often than others),
with their shorter than my dick life expectancies
and you,me, God, or George Bush can't do anything about it. It seems to you that your animals die all the time (well they do, that's how they're designed, like our great consumer products..)but that's because our live span is so much longer than theirs that we can outlive six consecutive
12 year old stinking cats. You happen to be a nut-
case who loves having animals around and caring for them. But you have to use your brain...You will out-live all you animals but the last cat you have when you're ninety-seven. They will fall into wells, be eaten by larger, meaner animals, run over by cars,tractors,trucks and even bikes. You can't do anything about it but what you do every day...extending their lives with your love and care far beyond what their lives would have been if you weren't there!
Don't let your love of animals turn your brain to mush. You are a savior of animals, but you don't need to be crucifying yourself.
5
Posted by: haveayen at July 20, 2004 03:38 PM (VPYMW)
2
*dialling DuPont frantically and chillin' on hold while Dad gets outta the bathroom*
Thank you Dad and God...
Thank you Dad and God...
Posted by: Stevie at July 20, 2004 03:50 PM (7raWZ)
3
Well, that about said it all. I was preparing some skeletal trestle of a response as I read along; stuff like "I see no mistakes there..." and "couldn't do a thing about that...". But instead I'll just ramble on and see what happens.
Animals are clever about natural-order-of-things type stuff. When I know it's close to feeding time and I don't want to let the cats outside, but, I want to check the mailbox, I'll look around and see BatCat (so named for her penchant for catching bats - indoors and out(!) - eyeing the door. She knows I'm about to open it yet somehow knows that I don't her outside. I see her sitting about ten feet from the door. Yes, sitting (though with her eyes fixed and pupils probably dilating franticly).
I turn to the door, crack it open a bit so I could reach my arm out to the mailbox and *whish!* out she goes. It's happened about 4 or 5 times in the past two years.
They're sometimes not so prepared, though, for the eccentricities of man-made surprises -- like automobiles. The fastest things that animals are prepared for are birds, some insects, maybe a cheetah. But a car or truck barrelling down the road at 40 mph isn't something that they are prepared to immediately recognize and so there's usually a delay in the response time. (I know I'm starting to sound tedius, but maybe this is going somewhere...).
We can't just lock our dogs and cats in the house. If they're going to live in this world with anyone -- which they love to do -- then it sounds like yours loved living with you at least as much as you loved them. In fact, it almost sounds like you needed them even more than they needed you.
Just a thought about the cat in the well. Your probably imagining his last moments a lot worse than they were. Animals (even us!) know not to inhale their spit because water in the lungs is ba-a-a-a-d. We animals instinctively know to hold our breath when underwater, and, if we never re-surface we'll just fall asleep.
While s/he may have been frantic and frustrated at first, there is a calm that settles in when any animal realizes that it's end is unavoidable. I'll bet that in the end that cat simply held it's breath calmly and thought "meow" [translation: oh, well... we all gotta go sometime... and too bad that this gonna hurt Stevie a lot more than it's gonna hurt me...]
We feel the painful loss of those we love because we remember the joy so vividly. But, to avoid the pain of loss is to reject the joy of love, and, hopefully, none of us would ever choose that.
If you're thinking, Stevie, that you lost them because you loved them and weren't prepared to somehow make them live as long as you loved them then think harder. They only met the fate that any animal in a world of us and them might meet. We often idealize "life in the wild" and imagine the lives of animals unfettered by humans to be balanced and harmonious. But, really, without you you're beloveds would have led lives that are typically stressful, tragic and short. And loveless.
I have a friend, Tara, who for a time was convinced that she was "bad luck" because she lost so many close frineds and family in a few years span. Her best friend from childhood, her best friend from college, her mother, her boyfriend in a motorcycle racing accident, her nephew whom she adored, her best friend's sister to liver cancer 'cause there were no livers available just months after Mickey Mantle died after getting a liver transplant.
Then there's me. The only loved ones I've lost were grandparents who died after long illnesses and, lately, parents of some of my friends. Some people lose others often and some almost never do. Apart and alone everyone of your animal's deaths was explainable. Guilt-free. The fact that it seems that so many have died so often is really only a testiment to how many you've invested yourself in and, sadly, how chance has picked you to bear their loss.
I don't know if any of this rambling has added up to anything. But, right now, I've got a scene from Star Trek V: the Final Frontier running through my head.
After McCoy shuts down his father's life support:
Sybok: Why did you do it?
McCoy: To preserve... his dignity.
Sybok: But, that wasn't the worst of it, was it?
McCoy: No.
Sybok: What happened next?
McCoy: Not long after, they found a cure. A god damned cure!
Sybok: So, you killed your father?
McCoy: No, I loved my father!
Sybok: So, you did what you thought was right..
McCoy: Yes. No! Yes. I don't know!
Sybok: (embracing McCoy) This pain has poisoned you for a long time. Share it with me and together we'll get to other side.
I only hope that you were right in suspecting that a catharsis would do some good. I've done in short burst myself and it always has!
Love ya!
Animals are clever about natural-order-of-things type stuff. When I know it's close to feeding time and I don't want to let the cats outside, but, I want to check the mailbox, I'll look around and see BatCat (so named for her penchant for catching bats - indoors and out(!) - eyeing the door. She knows I'm about to open it yet somehow knows that I don't her outside. I see her sitting about ten feet from the door. Yes, sitting (though with her eyes fixed and pupils probably dilating franticly).
I turn to the door, crack it open a bit so I could reach my arm out to the mailbox and *whish!* out she goes. It's happened about 4 or 5 times in the past two years.
They're sometimes not so prepared, though, for the eccentricities of man-made surprises -- like automobiles. The fastest things that animals are prepared for are birds, some insects, maybe a cheetah. But a car or truck barrelling down the road at 40 mph isn't something that they are prepared to immediately recognize and so there's usually a delay in the response time. (I know I'm starting to sound tedius, but maybe this is going somewhere...).
We can't just lock our dogs and cats in the house. If they're going to live in this world with anyone -- which they love to do -- then it sounds like yours loved living with you at least as much as you loved them. In fact, it almost sounds like you needed them even more than they needed you.
Just a thought about the cat in the well. Your probably imagining his last moments a lot worse than they were. Animals (even us!) know not to inhale their spit because water in the lungs is ba-a-a-a-d. We animals instinctively know to hold our breath when underwater, and, if we never re-surface we'll just fall asleep.
While s/he may have been frantic and frustrated at first, there is a calm that settles in when any animal realizes that it's end is unavoidable. I'll bet that in the end that cat simply held it's breath calmly and thought "meow" [translation: oh, well... we all gotta go sometime... and too bad that this gonna hurt Stevie a lot more than it's gonna hurt me...]
We feel the painful loss of those we love because we remember the joy so vividly. But, to avoid the pain of loss is to reject the joy of love, and, hopefully, none of us would ever choose that.
If you're thinking, Stevie, that you lost them because you loved them and weren't prepared to somehow make them live as long as you loved them then think harder. They only met the fate that any animal in a world of us and them might meet. We often idealize "life in the wild" and imagine the lives of animals unfettered by humans to be balanced and harmonious. But, really, without you you're beloveds would have led lives that are typically stressful, tragic and short. And loveless.
I have a friend, Tara, who for a time was convinced that she was "bad luck" because she lost so many close frineds and family in a few years span. Her best friend from childhood, her best friend from college, her mother, her boyfriend in a motorcycle racing accident, her nephew whom she adored, her best friend's sister to liver cancer 'cause there were no livers available just months after Mickey Mantle died after getting a liver transplant.
Then there's me. The only loved ones I've lost were grandparents who died after long illnesses and, lately, parents of some of my friends. Some people lose others often and some almost never do. Apart and alone everyone of your animal's deaths was explainable. Guilt-free. The fact that it seems that so many have died so often is really only a testiment to how many you've invested yourself in and, sadly, how chance has picked you to bear their loss.
I don't know if any of this rambling has added up to anything. But, right now, I've got a scene from Star Trek V: the Final Frontier running through my head.
After McCoy shuts down his father's life support:
Sybok: Why did you do it?
McCoy: To preserve... his dignity.
Sybok: But, that wasn't the worst of it, was it?
McCoy: No.
Sybok: What happened next?
McCoy: Not long after, they found a cure. A god damned cure!
Sybok: So, you killed your father?
McCoy: No, I loved my father!
Sybok: So, you did what you thought was right..
McCoy: Yes. No! Yes. I don't know!
Sybok: (embracing McCoy) This pain has poisoned you for a long time. Share it with me and together we'll get to other side.
I only hope that you were right in suspecting that a catharsis would do some good. I've done in short burst myself and it always has!
Love ya!
Posted by: Tuning Spork at July 20, 2004 09:15 PM (dI0HC)
4
Stevie, listen to your Dad. He's a pretty smart guy. I live in and worked in a rural county not too far from a large metopolitin area. City folks were always dumping critters. God may count, but I can't, the number of dogs I've found on the side of the road starving while they waited for their people to return for them. The lucky ones got picked up by county animal control, the vast majority euthanised but at least they didn't go hungry and thirsty.
Your critters are loved and cared for, that's better than a lot get. They are the lucky ones.
Your critters are loved and cared for, that's better than a lot get. They are the lucky ones.
Posted by: Peter at July 21, 2004 12:10 AM (b/7hi)
5
Stevie, this is why you and I are so very much alike despite our differences. It's all in the compassion we feel and the way we take on more responsibility than logically possible and then torture ourselves with the outcome.
It's already been said much better, but: NOT your fault. Definitely not.
It's already been said much better, but: NOT your fault. Definitely not.
Posted by: Snowball at July 21, 2004 02:06 PM (u3M6e)
Processing 0.0, elapsed 0.0072 seconds.
18 queries taking 0.0044 seconds, 13 records returned.
Page size 23 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.