We experienced a devastating loss on Thursday that has been extremely difficult for me. Writing has always been my way of processing painful things, and after a lot of thought, I know there is value in sharing this experience along with what the process of coming to terms with this loss has looked like for me. However, it’s something that I think may be too upsetting for some to read and so I want to give ample warnings before getting into it.
🚨First warning: This is about the death of a beloved family dog. Some may find the manner in which he died traumatic to hear about. If you are sensitive to hearing about animals deaths, I strongly suggest you do not read any further.
🚨Second warning: If you are part of my family who already knows what happened and feel irritated or angered that I would discuss such a thing, either don’t continue reading or keep your thoughts to yourself. I have written publicly about many, many traumatic experiences in my life and do my best to be fair in my description of events and people, even when those events and people were extremely traumatizing to me. My writing is not to expose or shame anyone, it’s for me. It’s part of my healing process.
🚨Third warning: Please don’t push yourself to read this if you know that you are someone whose day can be ruined by reading a sad animal story. (That is me, btw, so no judgment.)
Ok, last call.
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I don’t think I’ve mentioned until now that I live in an apartment above my dad’s garage. It isn’t attached to the main house, but we share a yard and parking area. This seems worth knowing.
Thursday morning and afternoon I was running errands. I got back to the house around 12:30pm. Then I did some work, I thought about taking out the trash, decided against it, then made dinner and settled in. Around 7pm my dad texted me that no one had seen Pig, one of the two dogs they have, in a few hours. I texted back immediately saying I’d help them search the neighborhood since it was about to get dark.
I started to get dressed and put my shoes on and when I got to the bottom of my stairs, I saw my dad and his wife in the driveway next to their car and started to walk towards them. Immediately the vibe they were giving off stopped me in my tracks. I turned around and decided to start checking all the little hiding spots in the backyard.
When I came back up to the front of the house I saw my dad at my apartment doorway. When I got to him he said in a very heavy tone, “Pig’s dead.” At first I thought he was just assuming that he’d died because we live in the country and it’s sort of dangerous out here for animals to get out. Then my dad’s wife walked up and calmly said, “It was an accident.”
I still didn’t understand.
Then my dad said that they found Pig dead in the back of the car. He had jumped in the car when my she left to drop someone off around 1pm and when she got back to the house, she just forgot that he was in the car with her. When they opened up the car they saw him. There were no signs of life. He had died in the hot car. Completely forgotten about.
If you ever met this dog, the first things you would notice about him is that he was wildly intelligent and completely devoted to his family. He was a fierce protector but smart enough to quickly accept any visitors who the family seemed friendly with. He lived for any small token of appreciation the family would give him. We would joke that he always seemed sort of insecure and often gave off a strong vibe like, “Am I doing a good job, you guys??”
He was beyond intuitive and could tell when someone needed extra love or support. He was a master at simply “holding space” when I felt fragile and like I was spiraling, which has been frequently in the last seven months of me living here. He would often sit next to me and offer me a paw like he completely understood what I was going through and he just wanted to be there for me.
My dad has had Pig for about six years, so I’ve known him for awhile. When I first moved here, he would paw at my glass frontdoor every day to say hello. Until my cat eventually saw him and started hissing and jumping up against the glass at him. He never growled at her, somehow immediately knowing that this apartment was her territory and he would not contest that. He just slowly backed away without making eye contact with her and then would only ever come as far as the bottom of my stairway. I constantly praised him for being so smart, so good, and so respectful to not mess with my cat.
A few months ago he developed a slight limp and I started doing energywork on him. Again, I felt like he knew what I was doing and went out of his way to express his gratitude.
Then about two weeks ago, when my heart rate was especially high one night, I couldn’t sleep and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. In the past, grounding, or sitting directly on the ground outside has helped when I feel like I’m losing control. This time, Luna, the family’s newest little dog approached, sized me up really quick, and was like, “Yikes, heavy vibes! Gotta go!” and ran off. Then seconds later Pig came over, as if saying, “Don’t worry, I know how to handle this. I’m here.” He put his front paws on my lap and nuzzled his head in the crook of my neck and just stayed there. Like he knew that was what I needed. I cried and hugged him for so long. I told anyone who’d listen how much he helped me that night.
I have always been a hardcore animal person. I’m far more sensitive to hearing about an animal being treated poorly than a human. Probably because they’re so pure and loving. I’ll admit that the treatment of animals among most Mexicans, including my dad’s wife, has been triggering for me. Many times since getting here I’ve noticed things that have greatly upset me, and yet I have to come back to telling myself that this is a different culture that has not had the luxury of seeing pets as an extention of the family. I’ve tried to make as much peace with this as I can.
What really struck me was that after this happened, it didn’t appear to me that she seemed upset. This dog whose entire world was loving and protecting his family died a torturous death in a hot car because she completely forgot he existed. For over six hours. My rage was so white hot that I no longer felt in control of my body or mind, which is a place I don’t often get to anymore.
In the back of my mind, a little voice was saying, “On the other side of this experience is acceptance and forgiveness. Feel it all, then when you are ready, begin to consider forgiveness.” I think of that voice as my “higher self,” the part that never dies and knows that death, cruelty, and gross negligence are all just part of the full spectrum of the human experience. I know it was my higher self because Earth Me was screaming, “This is unforgivable. Forgiveness is not an option. She’s a fucking murderer. I will never have anything to do with her again.”
So I felt everything that came up without restriction. I imagined his last moments over and over again. Him likely wondering when his family would come for him. In the end, his awareness that he was forgotten. I kicked myself for not staying out longer to do errands so that I would’ve come home and walked past their car and maybe seen him, saved him. I kicked myself for not taking the trash out an hour after I’d gotten home like I’d thought about doing and then maybe seeing him and saving him. I think about how I was up here above the garage, just 10 feet from where he was dying. Was he crying out and I just didn’t hear him? And why didn’t my unusually super-active intuition intervene this time and force me down there. What was I so busy doing that I rejected the small nudges I got to go down there. I felt it all. Over and over, as many times as I needed to.
This experience ate me alive. I didn’t stop crying for two days. I barely slept. I didn’t do anything other than think about this dog, this woman, this thoughtlessness, the suffering, and the rage. At some point, I started to remember the thing I’ve heard others say. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. It’s not for the other person. It’s for you. And I knew that it was something I’d need to do, eventually, even if I didn’t know how.
When I really thought about why I didn’t feel like I could forgive her or let go of this, it was because I would never forget an animal in this way. I’m someone who drives 10 miles under the speed limit when taking my cat to the vet. I back out of the driveway at a snail’s pace to avoid ever getting near the dogs. I just naturally err on the side of extreme caution and double-checking things out of habit, especially when other living beings are involved.
My mind wandered into remembering when I was on the cocktail of psychiatric drugs, specifically an antipsychotic called Seroquel. My brain barely worked and I was constantly forgetting huge things I’d never have come close to forgetting before. None of it ever resulted in a death, but some of it was still pretty painful. In one case, it resulted in the end of a long-term friendship that never recovered. I forced myself to really remember how that felt. Those times where, despite my best efforts, I just completely forgot something huge and that stomach-sinking feeling of knowing I can never go back and change it.
I thought about how accidentally killing a pet is the worst thing I could ever imagine happening to me. I used to joke that I wanted to buy heroin, but only so I can have it on hand in case I ever accidentally hit an animal with my car, because I don’t think I could live with myself after. I thought, what if it would’ve been me who accidentally left him in the car, somehow, someway, even though I’m as crazy as I am. Still, what if. I don’t know how I’d ever recover from that. And even though it doesn’t feel like this is something that has scarred her in the way that it would me, that is none of my business. Yes, a big part of the rage is just wishing she saw this dog as a part of the family enough to remember he was in the car with her, but another part is me projecting how I think one is supposed to react in this situation and then being angry that she’s not in utter shambles.
As difficult as this is for me, on some level I have to trust that however this affects her mentally and emotionally is exactly what she needed to experience and that whatever karma she accrued from this is also her business, not mine. I’m not the judge, jury, and executioner.
Pig deserved a peaceful, painless death when it was naturally his time, but that isn’t what happened, and that is just how life works. I’ve done enough ayahuasca to know that the nature of the universe can be incredibly cruel and painful for humans and animals. I’ve also had thousands of high-definition, fully immersive death experiences that have shown me our consciousness/soul/whatever knows when imminent, inescapable death is near and it starts to detach from our physical bodies before it gets to the most excruciating point. I pray that was the case for Pig. That his consciousness started to leave before feeling the worst of it.
I’ve not spoken with or seen her since this happened and I don’t know when I will. I do feel like I’m starting to accept that wherever she is with it, even if she’s completely over it, is none of my business. What is my business is how I react to things that are out of my control. My business is finding a way to not live a life consumed with rage and anger towards others even when they are cruel and negligent and thoughtless. It’s not the easy path and yet I already know the alternative path of holding on to it all is unsustainable for me.
If you believe in such things and want to send Pig some love on the other side, it would mean the world to me. He loved attention and praise more than anything, I have no doubt that it would light him up to receive that while he’s transitioning.
If you read til the end, I appreciate you for witnessing me and my pain despite this being a heavy thing to hear about. None of this was easy to write and yet it feels deeply cathartic to express the darkness that I’ve sat with mostly alone over the past few days. Thank you for being here.
Sent you a message on IG. So very sorry.
-George