Going Home; Finding Peace When Pets Die, by Jon Katz (Villard, 2011, 166pp., $22.00 US)

Going Home; Finding Peace When Pets Die, by Jon Katz (Villard, 2011, 166pp., $22.00 US) is a sort of manual for pet owners on pet death and grief, and when it’s necessary, on the decision to euthanize. It’s so much more than that, though—it’s also a paean to our pets and our relationships with them. Indeed, Katz characterizes the grief itself as an expression of our joy in the animal’s life.

Since the book covers both natural and assisted deaths, stressing the need for preparation, it makes useful reading for owners whose pets are still living and healthy as well as for those already grieving either form of loss. Katz includes sections on children’s experiences of pet death, and this is also covered thoroughly in Dr. Debra Katz’s Afterword (which the publisher’s notes refer to as a preface). 

Katz works three themes throughout the book. One, we are responsible for making choices that are in the animal’s best interests, not on the basis of what we want or what other people think we should do. Two, grief is normal and natural, and even a good thing, for it cleanses, heals, and stands as testimony to the love we had for our pet. Three, both the decision and the grief go best if we are prepared. What constitutes the animal’s best interests, and how do we tell? How do we grieve? And how do we prepare for deciding and grieving? The book addresses each in depth, including how to involve, prepare, and support the children. Katz approaches each task—which, as he points out, we commit to the moment we bring the animal into our homes and our lives—practically, spiritually, and compassionately. In doing so, Katz is incredibly generous, giving of himself in ways that few would have the courage to do in print. He shares his own grief, his personal failings, and his dreams (in chapters titled “Animal Dreams”).

Three of me read this book and we all loved it. The writer in me admired Katz’s ability to be both succinct and eloquent at the same time. This is the most eminently quotable book I have read in a long time—which is frustrating in a way because the publisher asks that nobody quote it yet as the ARCs are all uncorrected copy. (On which subject, this “uncorrected” copy is in better shape than some books I’ve seen in recent years that are in 2^nd and subsequent printings—and still riddled with a ridiculous number of errors. My hat’s off to the editors at Villard.) I have resolved that dilemma by quoting it anyway, as it is just too good to pass up. 

The clinical psychologist fell instantly and completely in love with the book. Its message of comfort, its exhortations to responsibility for our animals, its sweet photographs, and its moving stories all made me wish I could order a case of this book to hand out to grieving clients and friends. 

And finally, the dotty old woman who still mourns Rosie, who's been dead now for three years, hesitated to even start the book. When it arrived in the mail, I wondered what on earth I had been thinking when I requested it! But I was hooked on the first page. I read it in fits and starts, on lunch breaks and sometimes when I should have been doing paperwork, and I cried every time I picked it up. Sometimes for myself, sometimes for my Rosie, and sometimes for Katz or for whichever animal’s death the current chapter was about. But I found it tremendously comforting and anyway, as Katz put it, “I would hate to have a dog or cat for whom I did not grieve.”

The three of us have only a few, small quibbles with the book. One, and really the only substantive one, is the psychologist’s, and it has to do with the title: I’m uncomfortable with euphemisms like that, seeing them as a denial of the reality of death. The animal is not “going home”. It is dead, not somewhere else—gone. If clients’ personal spiritual beliefs include an afterlife or rebirth, fine. But I am not comfortable leading with that myself, preferring instead to follow the griever’s lead. Another, and I admit that this is so small it borders on petty, is the writer’s. Katz’s otherwise masterful story of The Perfect Day is marred, in my estimation, by the mention of a camera by brand name and model. I had that one myself once, and loved it, but really. That was just kind of jarring. And lastly, the dog owner found herself getting worked up over some of the folk (not Katz) in the book who let their animals run loose, but that’s not a quibble with the book per se. Just be forewarned that’s in there. 

Going Home will be available after September 27, 2011, and I highly recommend that if you have an animal, any kind of animal, to which you have become attached, you go out and get yourself a copy. Do it now, not when it gets sick or hurt or old. Buy one for a friend, too, while you are at it. 

Suicide

'Cause suicide is painless,

It brings on many changes,

And I can take or leave it if I please

-The theme from M*A*S*H,

by Johnny Mandel & Mike Altman

I've never tried it myself, but I really doubt that suicide is painless. Yes, I know--it's just a song. But there are lots of songs out there that imply the same thing, and the sentiment corresponds with what more than a few of my suicidal clients have as much as said. The truth of course is somewhat different.

The time leading up to the decision is certainly emotionally painful, and of course sometimes the person is motivated by chronic physical pain to consider suicide in the first place. And finally, suicide is ugly, so that no matter how you do it, it is going to be traumatic for whoever finds you.

It's not at all romantic

Suicidal people are in a world of pain. They do not feel loved, or even lovable. Waldowski, the suicidal dentist in M*A*S*H, couldn't get a girlfriend, and that was his central motivation for wishing to die. But most suicidal people (I would except folks like Hitler in his bunker) are loved. If you are depressed enough to kill yourself, you can't feel the love, but it's there. Both fictional scenarios, M*A*S*H and Tom Sawyer, are accurate in that regard. People will go to great lengths to keep you alive if you give them the chance (witness the ritual the whole M*A*S*H unit puts on to help Waldowski get laid), and they will certainly grieve you if you don't.

People die because they have given up hope. It is one of life's greatest tragedies that a laughing baby, a beloved toddler in his new white Stride-Rites, a snaggle-toothed teeny-bopper with her braces and pigtails, and a grinning teenage boy can grow up to be so hopelessly miserable that they end up blowing their brains out under a tree in the park one night, swallowing pills and putting bags over their heads in lonely motel rooms, or swerving their cars into oncoming traffic. Or like my friend back in '85, stuffing towels under the garage door and sitting in her car with its engine running, her favorite music on the radio, and a Moosehead in her hand, waiting for the Reaper.

Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the sun, the wind, or the rain
We can be like they are...

We'll be able to fly...
Redefine happiness...
We can be like they are

-Don't Fear the Reaper
Blue Oyster Cult

No, you can't: You can't be like the elements, you can't fly. (The last verse of the song makes suicide sound like the Darling children following Peter Pan out the nursery window.) You'll be dead. Suicide doesn't redefine happiness, or bring on many other changes, either, other than that you are now dead. I once heard a workshop presenter liken people's fantasies of suicide to the scene in which Huck and Tom watch from their hiding place as the townsfolk drag the Mississippi for their bodies, grieving the boys' presumed deaths and regretting every wrong or injury done them, however slight. I'm not sure suicidal people really understand that they will not be here somehow to see that their loved ones or the bosses or whoever "will be sorry." That relationship can't change after you are gone. The people you leave behind may well wish they could have a do-over, but will be too late for that. If you want things to be different, you have to be here for it.

Some folks, like teenagers, or persons with Borderline Personality Disorder, tend to give up hope when the problem situation is clearly (at least to the dispassionate outside observer) a temporary one. This was, of course, the case with Romeo thinking Juliet had really died. But they over-react, they believe that they way they feel now is forever, always has been, and always will be. They cannot remember that they actually have felt better recently, and most likely will again soon. They see no solution to their situations. Such folks are particularly prone to impulsive, lethal attempts. This is perhaps life's greatest tragedy, because such people do not have to die. Many, if not most, suicides don't, but these people really don't. Unfortunately this is a decision that, once made, cannot be un-made: As the old line goes, it's a permanent solution to a temporary situation.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say with this rambling missive. Perhaps I just want you, if you are feeling this way, not to give up hope. I want you to believe that the love is out there, even if you can't feel it right now. I want you to believe that you can find happiness again, or maybe for the first time, but you can find it.

Rosie

Gini's Cherokee Rose was my therapy dog for the first six or seven years of her life. She started coming to work with me as soon as she was housebroken, when she was still so small that I could carry her up the stairs to our offices in her puppy crate like I was carrying a purse.

She had a doggie door at home, and so could help herself to the back yard in the mornings. If she was outside when it was time to go to the office, I would holler out the back door, "Time to go to work!" and she would come running. Her favorite day was Tuesday, when her favorite client, "Miss B." had her regularly-scheduled weekly session. Miss B., who had a dog of her own at home, always brought a dog-biscuit for Rosie, but other people brought treats, too: Miss B. was Rosie's favorite for other reasons. At first, I would tell Rosie on Tuesdays that "It's Miss B.'s day today," or "Miss B. is coming today!" but she eventually learned somehow which days were Tuesdays and would be noticeably more excited about going to work those mornings.

Another client, we'll call her Mrs. C., brought in a cartoon once showing a dog, with a little diploma on the wall that said "Pet Therapist," explaining to a new client that the therapy works because "I wag my tail and you feel better." Rosie didn't have more than two inches of tail, if that, but the therapy worked: Mrs. C. used to refer to her treatment schedule as "coming to see the Dog's mother."

Freud's dogs were often present in sessions. He swore that people would tell the dogs things that they wouldn't tell him. The day Miss B.'s dog died, she came in, took Rosie onto her lap, and announced, "She knows. She knows why I'm sad." And Rosie probably did, although I could not tell that she was doing anything different that morning. And she was a great comfort to Miss B. for many sessions afterward. Miss B. once asked, if I died, could she inherit Rosie?

Rosie also went to school. She made several appearances in my Introductory Psychology classes as a demonstrator for the units on behavior modification. In between lecturing, she wandered up and down the aisles between students' desks, sniffing their lunches and stealing Kleenex out of the girls' purses.

At work she liked to leave her toys in other therapists' wastebaskets in exchange for wads of paper which she could shred and scatter like confetti all over the suite. One colleague kept a pair of walking shoes on a shelf in the knee-hole under her desk, with socks stuffed into the toes. Rosie was particularly fond of stealing those.

She was such a fixture at the office that for a while her crate served as my end-table: I even had a lamp on it and could put my coffee-mug there during sessions. A neighbor, not realizing that this was my practice, came for an initial consultation with a colleague. I heard him say as he was leaving, "Wait. I know that dog! Does Ginny Wood work here?" after which he stuck his head in my door to say hi.

When she got older, she got snarly and snappish and I eventually had to "retire" her, but even after she became less friendly with people, Miss B. remained a favorite. Rosie would lie across her lap on the couch throughout the session, and Miss B. would stroke her as we talked. One day, Miss B. was making a series of points. "Number one," she would say, and absently poke Rosie's shoulder. "Number Two," poke. "Number Three," poke. Rosie never batted an eye.

Rosie died the Saturday before Labor Day. She was 14.

I miss Paula

My PDA beeped me Saturday morning to remind me that her birthday is next week. She spent her last birthday in the hospital, and died a few weeks later. Her office still seems terribly empty to me. And the neighborhood seems terribly empty without her. I can't believe it's already been a year.

We first met back in the early '80s. I don't remember exactly when, probably around '83 or '84, but it wasn't long after her divorce. Her son and mine were the same age, and we lived barely two blocks apart. We didn't really become friends right off, although our sons were in the same first-grade class and hung out a little together.

Friends or not, I admired Paula from the get-go. She had a way about her, which I could never quite put my finger on, that caused people to underestimate both her intelligence and her courage. But she was smart, and she was tough. She was a single Mom raising three kids on her own. Child support was late more often than not, weekend visits with the dad frequently cancelled at the last minute. She worked full time in a pink-collar job for pink-collar wages, drove three hours round-trip several nights a week to complete first her undergraduate degree, then her graduate training, and still found time and money to buy ponies for her kids and schlep them and their tack and gear around the Southeastern horse-show circuit behind "the Skate," that tiny little car not even as big as the pony. And she was strong in her faith.

When she got ready to do her practicum experience for her Masters in counseling, she called to see if she could come to work with me. She did, and stayed for two semesters. She was well-trained in Rogerian therapy and was a serious, hard-working student. She was a joy to supervise. She saw some clients on her own and did some co-therapy with me, and got A's in the course. After she graduated, she wanted to work with us for the Supervised Work Experience she had to have (three years' worth) to get licensed. And after she got licensed, she stayed on as a colleague. I used to joke that I couldn't get rid of her.

All in all, I'd say we'd been together over ten years by the time of her death, and by then she had become a good friend. We walked together some (although she preferred the track and I preferred the neighborhood streets). We swam at the community pool, and we had "Culture Day" once in awhile and went to the museum or to home tours and such. We called each other when there were good birds in the air over our neighborhood ("Go outside! Quick! There's cranes!").

I loved her laugh. I loved that little disgusted spit noise she would make when she was mad.

She'd been sick a long time. It started with some falls that, at the time, did not seem all that unusual. But they got more frequent. Her balance was affected. Her gait was affected. She said her head felt heavy. I don't remember what all else. She visited doctors who said it was this (it wasn't), and it was that (it wasn't) and gave her medications, and changed the prescriptions when they didn't work. But because she had a really crappy HMO, it took months to get an MRI and find the tumor. By the time they did, she could barely walk.

Also possibly because of the crappy HMO, she didn't get a second opinion. I'll always wonder if she should have had radiation or chemo or something instead of the surgery, or to shrink the tumor before surgery. I'll always wonder if, had they caught the tumor sooner, or even if they'd caught the infection sooner, she would have lived. But she didn't, and they didn't, and she was gone in what seemed like the snap of your fingers although she'd been sick for nearly a year and in the hospital over a month.

She was 60 years young. She had children she loved and who loved her. She had grandchildren she adored and who adored her. She had plans, goddammit.

I miss her laugh. I miss that little disgusted spit noise she made when she was mad.