Holly
Today my dog looked at me, the way she always does when she longs for my attention. A look that says ‘wait! Why did you go! Come back and pat me, just one more time’. Repeat until never satisfied. But this time, as has been happening more recently, her old age has been slowly creeping into that look, so that it no longer quote says ‘Just one more time’ but ‘I need you. Come comfort me. I’m in pain.’
I think about Holly dying. Again. As I’m thinking about it more and more now. I feel like I’m the only one still adoring her eccentricities as opposed to complaining about them in her old age. As she sits beside me, snoring deeply and happily, I think about funeral arrangements of sorts. I think about what our next door neighbours did when their dog Mandela died. They had him cremated. I think about Holly being cremated. Losing her smile, her fur. Her snore. And then, for some strange reason I think of Family Guy and how Brian’s parents were stuffed and used as coffee tables when they died. I immediately think how perverted it would be to stuff my dog. To preserve her like that. And then I finally understand the reasoning behind such an act. To still see that smile, feel that fur. Imagine that snore. And suddenly it’s not a perversion. It’s a reminder that one day, she’ll be gone.