I Run Away From Death

Except for That One Time

I’m definitely going left…

I was writing on the living room sofa the other day when I looked up to see our neighborhood stray cat¹ (who’s not really stray because he has an entire luxury cat apartment set up in our garage) sauntering from the park across the street to our house. He had something large in his mouth. The something large had feet.

I immediately screamed like a horror movie victim for my husband (who thank God works from home and wasn’t traveling for work at the time) to come help. We leave the garage door cracked open a little so the cat can come and go from his pied-a-terre, and he had already made his way inside before my husband made it down the stairs.

I was not about to investigate the crime scene created by the cat who shall now be known as Murder Mittens. I can’t deal with animal suffering or gore. I know my limits and am happy to oblige them. So it is always Chris’s duty to handle such scenes. (He knows and accepts this as part of his job description. Don’t @ me.)

Murder Mittens had taken his kill under the car. Only his kill wasn’t killed yet. It was a poor bird, barely hanging on but still with its regular bird wings and not yet its angel ones. Chris took it away from the cat, wrapped it in a towel and held it until it died. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at it.

And yet I held my mom’s hand as she died.

A few months ago, we had a similar, although even more disturbing encounter. I was watering my patio plants while my two dogs sniffed around the back yard. Roxie, our huge black German Shepherd mix, was hanging out at the back fence. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice her wagging tail.

I don’t think too much about it. She’s a happy dog outside in her happy place. She sticks her nose into the bushes where our fence backs up to an open field so that all I can see of her is her still wagging tail. I briefly have the thought that maybe Noc-Noc (the one who has now been rechristened Murder Mittens) is on the other side of the fence. They’re friends.

Almost as quickly as that thought lands, though, it vaporizes into a gut punch panic as I watch Roxie pounce and play like she does when she has a stuffed toy. And I remember the rabbits. They often visit our yard from the field but always hop through the fence when our dogs are outside. I throw down the hose and run toward Roxie yelling DROP IT DROP IT DROP IT.

She doesn’t drop it. By the time I get across the yard, I can see it’s a baby bunny. And it’s kind of…inside out.

I ran back to the house, yes, screaming like a horror movie victim for Chris. (Again, thank God he was home.) He swooped in, scooped up the bunny, which like the bird was not quite dead yet, and cradled it until the end as I hid out inside. Then he buried it.

Yes, that man is a bonafide hero, and I do not deserve him. But also I do other stuff to contribute to our household division of labor besides the management of dead and dying things.

If Chris hadn’t been home, I would have recruited my neighbor, Greg. (Greg, you’ve been warned.) I was sufficiently traumatized by my brief glimpse of the bunny homicide and could not have taken any more.

And yet I held my mom’s hand as she died.

Years ago, I looked out the window one morning to see my two dogs (not my current dogs) playing tug-of-war with a toy in the backyard. How cute I thought until the realization hit that it wasn’t a toy. It was a rooster. My tender feelings of warmth for their morning playtime were instantly replaced by jagged feelings of hysteria.

Although we lived in the middle of an urban city, we actually had a neighborhood rooster who would choose a different fence to perch on each morning for his cock-a-doodle-dos. I had seen him perched on ours at breakfast.

Back then Chris did not work from home, so I called him at his office (you will not be surprised to hear that I might have been screaming) and asked ordered him to come home and handle this fright show. By the time he arrived, all that was left of the rooster was a beak, some feet and a few feathers. I steered clear of the backyard for days.

And yet I held my mom’s hand as she died.

I regularly see dead deer on the side of the highway where I live, and it completely freaks me out. I cannot stand to see these majestic creatures crumpled. And God forbid I see a dog or cat that’s been hit by a car.

I cannot handle it. And what I mean by cannot handle it is that I feel like I’ve been physically punched with a potent mix of sadness, dismay, panic, dread and despondency. I’ll see the images when I close my eyes at night. Can’t even escape them in my dreams.

I can’t explain why I am so deeply affected by animal death, but I am. Always have been. I feel it too much. I’m not one to run away from big feelings, but I will run away from this. Usually while screaming.

Is it the intensity of their vulnerability? Their innocence being snuffed out? The reminder of the dark side of the circle of life?

I don’t like suffering of any kind. I would be wholly unqualified to work any job that requires up close and personal contact with human suffering, much less death. I am in awe of my cousin who is an oncologist and her husband, an ER physician. I appreciate those who place themselves in close proximity to the dying—first responders, medical professionals, hospice caregivers. I respect them all, but I could never be one.

And yet I held my mom’s hand as she died.

Was it different because we knew it was coming? Because even though I’m not religious I had faith that the ending was another kind of beginning? Was it that I knew she wouldn’t suffer any more, because it was relatively peaceful, because I was ready for it to end, because it wasn’t sudden or dramatic, because it was my mom?

I don’t know.

But I held my mom’s hand as she died. And it was a beautiful thing.

1. For the background story on this cat (and all my other pets) read this.

If My Pets Were People