All dogs deserve to go to Heaven

My parents made the difficult decision to put our family dog, Cerberus, to sleep. He has been badly behaved for a long time, but recently it has escalated to the point of being quite scary. He was a beautiful jack russell and it feels like we’ve failed him by not being able to control him, and he’s had to pay for it with his life. I’m glad I was on the other side of the world, and my parents spared me the anxiety by only telling me after the deed was done, as I’d asked them to do if it ever came to this. I just hope that all dogs do indeed go to heaven and that he is floating on a white cloud surrounded by meaty treats and chew toys.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about mortality lately, and how quickly my own life seems to be going, despite my youthful age. My grandmother is 97 years old and is one tough broad. Her heart is ridiculously strong from years of fastidious house work and vigorous walking and general hardiness of character. She would wake up every day at 5.30am just to wash the windows, apparently*; I complain about my 6.30am alarm for work. Once, when she was in her 70s, she woke up in the middle of the night hearing a strange sound downstairs, and went down to confront a burglar – a young man in a ski mask – armed with only an umbrella. She, an elderly widow, ran around after this young man with her brolly and chased him right out of the house. Sadly, her heart is as strong as ever but her mind is not and she is very senile now, introducing me to her nurses as her sister. That’s quite an age gap.

 

Well, she is losing weight fast and doctors think the cancer that she beat a few decades ago might have returned. Treatment would be crazy at this point – if it’s her time to go, at 97, then it’s her time and she should be made as comfortable as possible. But with the dog’s young life ended, and hers going on, and mine speeding up it seems, I can’t help but think about life, and mortality, and what we do with the time we have.

 

I fear I waste much of my life with silly magazines, ridiculous television shows, and too much time spent in my own head, daydreaming. Life is for living – for trying new experiences and being adventurous. I moved to another country and started everything fresh, but I’m still the same person and I still don’t take the risks I need to to grow as a person.

 

So here is a challenge to myself, and to all of you: try to do things that are outside of your comfort zone. Even small things. For example, the place I work at had a book sale last week, so I bought 7 books for 7 dollars, and I made sure a couple of them were about topics I would never usually read about – challenging topics that I might consider above my usual level for personal reading. But I want to be made to think, to understand more about this world. 

 

That’s just a simple example, and there are more things I have in mind personally. What do any of you think? What might you do that frightens you a little to think about but you feel would help you grow as a person?

 

RIP Cerberus Fisher

This is my editorial blog from Calliope: Voice of the Writers.

 

* My father has read this post and informed me that his mother is actually a mere whippersnapper at the age of 95, not 97, and that she did not wake up *every* day at 5.30am to wash the windows – that was merely her ideal way to kick off a perfect day of cleaning… Sadly I have not inherited her domestic fortitude.