Emma

The death of a pet brings you to a different conclusion than the death of a person. While death is inevitable for all things, it is much more immediate with pets. When you purchase them, at some point you calculate how old you will be when they are no longer in your life again. It is this knowledge that changes the experience, because it allows you to love them in a different way than you would if they would be there forever. No more or less, necessarily, but in a different form.

This emotional logic comes from the mind of an adult, though. It is different with children. When we’re young all we see a small fuzzy thing to play with and love. I cannot say at 8 years old, when Maggie got Emma that I had even accepted the concept that one day my parents would die. I certainly wasn’t thinking about it in terms of her, or Max, when we got them.

So with the passing of Emma passes my last youthful acceptance of a pet coming into my life: the unconditional greeting of a new friend, and the faith that they will always be there.

I was afraid of cats when Maggie got Emma. My only experience with cats had been our 400 pound, razor-toothed tabby who spent her days pretending to be asleep while family was in the room, but bright-eyed and biting as soon as it was only the two of us.

I didn’t understand why Maggie would want another demon-spawn bundle of joy in the house, but she somehow conveyed to me that not all cats were like the one we had. I am sure of this because I remember sometime around Thanksgiving parading around the house putting up home made posters in favor of Maggie getting a cat for Christmas.

I was still a bit afraid of her when we got her. The razor-tabby (Lucia – only a two letter difference and it’d be Lucifer!) didn’t have front claws and she still drew blood on a regular basis. Emma came with claws! That could only be bad, I thought.

Conveniently, Emma was not only afraid of me too: but was afraid of all living things and the majority of inanimate objects. My fear of her quickly subsided as she and I had an unspoken agreement that she wouldn’t bite me if I left her alone. (I’d like to clarify that this agreement was made preemptively, as I never once witnessed Emma bite a human.)

Things stayed this way between Emma and I until Maggie left for college. About two weeks after Maggie left, for the first time in our relationship, Emma came and jumped up on my chest while I lay watching television. Through the rest of high school, including the 9 months where I was out of commission with mono, Emma kept me company by lying on my chest watching my face intently as I watched television.

Pets are one of the few things in life we go into knowing, whole-heartedly, that we will lose. Parents expect to outlive their children. When we buy houses, even if we know we won’t live there forever, it is at least expected that 100% of the money put into it will be returned to us, if not with a profit.

We eat food believing there will be more, fuel our cars believing there will be more gas next time – we fuel our lives believing there will always be more of whatever we need. We go into hardly any situation knowing that we will lose something in the end.

But we know we will lose pets, and coming with the acceptance of that is a different kind of love we share with them. We can love them for what they are, and what they bring us in the short time they’re with us.

I don’t know how well I've said what I'm trying to say, and worry I’m starting to repeat myself, so, I’ll leave it at that. I tried to find a good quote by Emma Thompson (who Emma was named after) but, that didn’t work so, I’ll go with one of Maggie's other favorites.

Farewell, my sister, fare thee well.
The elements be kind to thee, and make
Thy spirits all of comfort: fare thee well
-William Shakespeare

Emma saying "Hi!" to me over Skype, January 23rd, 2008