BA50 Talkers
For many of us at midlife, the kids going off to college and getting used to the empty nest is just one trauma– our pets passing away is another. We thought this piece from the NY Times, by Jen A. Miller, was especially poignant and informative. It begins,
“On Jan. 4, 11 years and 26 days after I walked out of an animal shelter in New Jersey with a little white and brown dog attached to the end of a brand-new leash, she died. On this day, an undiagnosed tumor pressed down on Emily’s brain and told her that she needed to escape, which made her usually soft, cuddly and often napping body go wild, endangering herself and me. The humane thing to do was put her down.
“I don’t think anything could have prepared me for that moment, or the searing grief that followed. But if I could go back in time to console myself, I would tell myself these six things…”
Read more here