I get it now
On continuing to understand
I think life, if you’re living it right, is a continuous process of gaining empathy for other people. Put another way, as your breadth of experiences grows, your understanding of why people do the things they do will increase – or at least it should, if you’re being honest and open with yourself.
Walking a mile in another person’s shoes isn’t the only way to extend your humanity, but it’s an easy shortcut. A few examples:
When I had babies, I suddenly understood why people shake babies. I didn’t shake my babies, but I thought to myself, “I bet most of the time, the parent doesn’t mean any harm. They’re just desperate. They are just trying to grapple with the fact that this baby will not stop crying.” I get it.
When I got nasal surgery, I understood how people get addicted to prescription painkillers – it’s because they feel fucking great. My nose healed up and I didn’t need the painkillers anymore, but if that pain had never gone away… I get it.
After an extremely difficult professional year, I now understand how people can become alcoholics. Drinking is fun and calming and a tempting way to reward yourself after a long day or week (I’m writing this on a Friday night, one bloody mary deep). I’ve had a lot of those lately; I get it.
Anyway, all that to say that I now understand why people believe – why people want to believe – in the rainbow bridge.
A few weeks ago, I thought my cat, Max, was going to die (that’s why I missed my first essay in January). He vomited several times in quick succession, and when I took him into the vet, they told me he would probably need surgery, which would have cost several thousand dollars. This wasn’t really in the budget for my family, and even if it was, Max is 13 years old. Surgery or not, he’s an old man; how long would a procedure like that prolong his life?
I am not an animal person, except for cats, which I have always held an unexplainable fondness for. I think it’s because a cat feels very much like its own person, with its own interior life, goals, and interests that exist outside of its owner – unlike a dog, whose existence revolves around the person who gives it the most food and pets. If a cat decides it likes you, I’ve always thought, it’s because you’ve earned its trust. It feels very special.
That said, Max was still different. Growing up, I’d only ever had outside cats, all of which grew more aloof with age (and usually, when it was time to die, they would simply fuck off into the woods by our house, never to be seen again. To a cat, death is the ultimate embarrassment). My wife and I adopted Max from a shelter a few months after we got married, when he was still a kitten. He has been with me for most of my adult life. I have known him longer than my children, and when my children were small, I’m ashamed to say that I sometimes treated him with a modicum of neglect or frustration. Those were hard times – physically, financially, emotionally. But I’ve always loved him, and he fucking loves me.
He comes when I call. He never misses an opportunity to sit on my lap. If I call his name, if I look at him, if I wake him up while he’s asleep, he’s suddenly all purrs. His devotion is doglike. I like to think I’ve earned it, that he knows how much I love him, but I’m probably just lucky.
I think the thing that was most devastating to me about the idea of putting Max down is that he seemed, for all intents and purposes, basically fine. It was just that he wasn’t keeping food down or pooping. He didn’t really seem particularly sluggish or out of it, so each time I took him to the vet over the course of that weekend, It felt like I was potentially taking my friend to the slaughter. And there was no way to explain to Max what I was doing! He hates, hates, hates being transported in his kitty cage, particularly in a vehicle, and I was devastated that his final moments could be in fear, looking at me and feeling like his best friend had betrayed him.
To make matters worse, I was furious with myself. For one thing, I was taking Max’s potential demise much harder than I had the deaths of actual human beings I’ve known over the last few years. I was sad at the deaths of my last few grandparents, but I didn’t cry – and here I was, sobbing at the very idea that I would lose this animal, a being I’ve never had a conversation with, not in possession of any sort of interior life I could ever hope to access. For another, I felt like I had failed Max. Maybe I’d taken him too much for granted, hadn’t soaked up the experiences of our snuggle times and the charm of his silly moods. I’d always known he was going to die at some point, but that point was never today, never tomorrow, and so he was a fixture. The first night I thought he might die, I brought him home from the vet and watched a movie. I didn’t really care what it was; I just wanted an excuse to sit still so he could be on my lap.
The next day, we got another diagnosis: Max had pancreatitis, and he would probably be OK so long as we changed his diet and made sure he got enough fluids. I called my wife as I drove home, and I couldn’t stop sobbing. I think it’s maybe the first time in my life that I’ve cried in relief.
My wife, and my therapist, tell me that this is understandable. Max is always there. I spend more time with him than I do with most human beings. We do have a relationship; it’s just different than one you’d have with a person. What I went through is normal. If you have a pet yourself, you probably think that this is a stupid and obvious thing for me to say. I acknowledge that; I never got it before. Now, I do.
I have always had a vague suspicion of people who are “too into” their animals. If you call your animal your child, if you plan your life around it, if you prioritize its needs above those of human beings – I’ve always found that behavior highly questionable. In many ways, I still do. But I have to acknowledge that even though Max’s life is not as important as the life of any individual human being, it is important. It’s important to me. And that has made me understand why people want to believe in the rainbow bridge, even though I don’t.
We’re all just trying to make it as far and as long as we can in this life. The next time I see someone grieving or overly doting on a pet, I’ll know firsthand the turmoil they may be going through – or at least a portion of it, as Max is thankfully still with us at time of writing. His brush with death showed me how special and fragile he, and all the connections we make in life, really are. Who am I to think I’m above that?
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What else is good on the internet?
This is a good essay about the cancerous prioritization of growth above all else in business.
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From the field
Here’s a review I recently wrote of the recent spy comedy Argylle.
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Follow me on Twitter @RTHowitzer, read my Letterboxd reviews @mrchumbles, listen to my Star Trek podcast at outofcontreks.podbean.com, or email me at outofcontreks@gmail.com.