Your Dog Died
You rush up to me in the grocery store, step in front of me, blocking me, your eyes all melting sympathy.
You saw the obituary. My brother died last week. And you know how I feel, you say. Your dog died last week too.
What you will never know is what I wish I could say in this moment but cannot, the onus of response you put on me too great, the weight of fresh sorrow too crushing to voice the questions I want to ask you.
Was your dog at your side from the day you were born? Did you live with the expectation that he would be with you your whole life through? Was he your guide, your role model, your cheerleader?
Did your dog calm your first-pregnancy fears, fax encouragement during labor? Did you entrust him with the care of your children, for an hour, a day, a week?
Did your dog hold your hand and spin comforting memories when your grandmother died? Crow to his colleagues about your literary achievements? Make you laugh countless times over half a century without ever once making you cry?
You loved your dog. He was a true-blue companion. You say you know how I feel. Your words belittle my loss. From the abyss of my grief, it’s a cruel burden to expect me to infer your intent.
When your dog died, you didn’t have to break the news to his mother, and for the rest of her days parse your own grief in order to help her deal with the most unthinkable loss life can inflict. You didn’t have to wake your dog’s nephews in the night, the worst night of your life, to tell them in rivers of stinging tears what you couldn’t bring yourself to say in words.
You didn’t hold your dog’s children in your arms, knowing you couldn’t, still can’t, ease the flood of thought, all the joyous life markers that will come to pass without their father’s physical presence, all the challenges, doubts and sadnesses they will face without their beloved and most trusted adviser.
You didn’t stand by your dog’s wife, feeling the agony of knowing that for all the years ahead, you would never be able to say the right thing because you don’t know what she’s going through. How she feels.
Your dog died. But don’t say it, that you know how I feel. Your dog wouldn’t. He would know that he doesn’t know. . .
But I don’t say these things. You take my fragile smile as acceptance of your intended comfort. You squeeze my arm and say you’ll call me for a lunch date soon. That lunch will never happen because, unbeknownst to both of us just yet, I won’t ever find it in my wounded heart to forgive you.
Ellen Notbohm’s work touches millions in more than twenty-five languages. She is author of the acclaimed novel The River by Starlight, the nonfiction classic Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew, and numerous short fiction and nonfiction pieces appearing in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies in the US and abroad. Her books and short prose have won more than 40 awards worldwide.