Tragedy & Tenderness

I have a tragic tale I want to share with you. But I want you to be warned, you might not want to read this if you have things to do today. The best example I can give you is sometimes when I drop my son off at daycare in the mornings, as soon as I hand him to one of the ladies that works there, he turns and looks back at me and starts crying and reaching out for me. The first time this happened was not with him, but almost five years ago with my daughter. For me there is nothing that is more likely to screw up my whole day more than my son or daughter crying for me not to leave them. After that the rest of my day is pretty much shot and I only have that image swimming around in my head all day. I think there is a good psychological explanation for that I will perhaps get into another time. But you are warned, if you don’t want to risk screwing up your day or your night’s sleep don’t read this right now. Wait until you have a better time, or not at all. I would totally understand if you never want to read this. What I have to say might do more than tug on your heartstrings, it might rip them out and piss all over them. I don’t tell this story to bring anyone down or have them share in my grief, I tell it because there is a tender beauty at the end of it that touches me deeply. It is this beauty that might do more to screw up your day or night than the tragedy, it was the beauty that kept me awake until midnight last night. It was this same tenderness that was fresh on my mind this morning and in my thoughts all day.

Sunday, we were doing a little house cleaning, big stuff this time. It was brought about by the intolerable disarray of our girls’ bedroom. Kimberly went through the room and decided she wanted to throw out a lot of stuff. We found other items that were taking up space too and decided to get rid of them. I pile stuff like this up in the backyard for months, old water hoses, large empty boxes, old appliances, sticks, and boards. When either the pile gets too big or we decide to do this kind of cleaning, I burn it. Sunday, especially considering it had just rained I decided to burn it. The pile was big and Kimberly kept bringing me more stuff to burn. My dog, Pepsi, stayed on a chain that’s limit was a few feet away from the fire. Kimberly decided to let her go so she could stretch her legs and so she didn’t have to feel the heat, or breath the smoke.. Pepsi bounded around the yard enjoying her temporary reprieve.

I was in the backyard burning, MaKayla was in the front yard sitting on the sidewalk playing with some chalk, the rest of my family was inside still cleaning. Can there be anything more beautifully innocent and serene than the image of a five-year-old girl with long blonde hair blowing in the wind drawing pictures and nonsense words on the sidewalk while the family dog bounces around her, both happily enjoying a beautiful, cool late summer day? I would have you see this image very well, it is nice isn’t. My sweet little girl whose vocabulary is well beyond that of a toddler, but who still possesses that problem with annunciation that makes all children’s voices so cute, my dog who has a problem with her odor because she sweats, but who has the sweetest temperament, totally unaware of her own size and confused as to why the smaller animals don’t want to play with her. Do you see this well, I wish I could tell you my tale ended here, I really do, but I can’t.

Nature has a sick sense of humor. My dog had a bad habit of chasing cars, not everyone that came by, one out of every four or five maybe. There was no predictable pattern. Sometimes she would see a car and the mood would strike her and she would give chase. Sometimes she would see a car and not. We had left her off the chain for sometime and decided that since she couldn’t stop chasing cars we had to put her back on a chain, she was a danger to herself and drivers. People that have dogs that chase cars can only expect one end to come of this. Eventually the dogs luck or ability to pull up in time would run out. Sunday was Pepsi’s day. A large white truck passed and the mood struck Pepsi. She let loose with her barks of excitement and gave chase. My daughter looked up at the sound of Pepsi’s barks and watched her. Watched the truck run down my big, friendly canine. There was no mess and my dog didn’t die straight out, she was either thrown or got back up and ran. My daughter would report to her mother while they were taking a bath that she could still hear Pepsi in her ears, this was hours later too.

Pepsi in her final burst of energy ran toward home and what she hoped was her safety. She ran so hard with her last effort that she ran into the side of the house and my wife heard it and came to investigate. After running into the house Pepsi turned and saw MaKayla. This is what I choose to believe here, this last act of Pepsi’s could be no more than coincidence, but I don’t think or want to believe that. Pepsi saw MaKayla and felt the blackness closing in around her, some part of her, instinct perhaps knew the end was here. With the last ounce of strength she walked over to my sweet daughter, one of us that Pepsi so loved, and laid down next to her. My wife looked out the window at that moment to see what the noise was. There was MaKayla sitting with her legs crossed on the sidewalk, her chalk spread out around her, colorful happy images peppering the gray of our walkway, and next to her was Pepsi lying on the sidewalk, her tongue hanging out limp and her eyes vacant and lifeless. She saw Pepsi’s chest rise a single time, then no more. Pepsi died right there next to my daughter, and I choose to believe that she found some comfort in being close to someone she loved there at the end, maybe even peace. It is a horrible and beautiful image at the same time, both tragic and tender. When I think about it, as I do now, it rips me apart with equal measures of grief and something akin to pride.

My greatest concern after this and probably something on the forefront of your mind as well was whether or not this incident would traumatize my daughter. I don’t think it has, though it is too soon to know for sure, I am writing this the day after this event, but she seemed okay yesterday and seems okay today too, a little sad maybe, but that is to be expected. I have not talked to her about it, I don’t know if that is the right decision or not. I don’t know if it was a decision at all. Part of me believes that I should talk to her about how it made her feel, and part of me believes that such a talk might add weight to it in her mind and cause the trauma I am hoping to avoid. The only mention she has made of it since then, outside of the journalist point of telling us what happened, was when she told her mother that she could still hear the sound Pepsi made after the truck hit her. She slept well last night, and that is good. If any of you have thoughts on this I would surely listen.

I hope you see why I told you this story, sometimes at the worst moments of life there is still beauty. And it is moments like those that can touch us most deeply. I buried my dog next to her favorite bush in the backyard, but my last memory of her is not burying her, or the last time I saw her frolicking before the accident, it is of something I didn’t even witness. It is of her laying down next to my daughter to be close to someone she loves, and find comfort in that love. Tragic it may be, that is still a great and powerful memory to have.

It's a celebration, it's a national party, it's a holiday, it's a signifigant event. No, wait it's none of these. Then why haven't I been able to go anywhere for the past two weeks without hearing about it. I walk into class and hear, "Today is Katrina's Birthday", I look at a paper and see headlines like, "One Year Later". What is this fascination, why are we marking this passing of time.

I know this isn't the first time we have recognized and dwelled on tragedy. I was around in September 2002 and remember all the rememberance. And maybe I accepted that one as almost necessary because September 11th was definitely a watershed moment in American history. Perhaps some would argue that Katrina is too, but I don't know about that.
To me it seems a little morbid to mark the passing of time from this tragedy. Yes, I know we should remember lest we repeat the mistakes of our past, but personally I find this fascination of celebrating or at least acknowledging the anniversary of Katrina more disturbing than the publics inexplicable fixation on Brad and Angelina's baby.

But lets go deeper, because there is something about all of this I find deeply disturbing. Hurricane season is well under way now and every little tropical storm is now being watched with greedy fascination. Do your own people-on-the-street poll and you may find that there are more people that can tell you at least one storm in the gulf now then their are who can't. Maybe it was this way before Katrina, but I would be skeptical of that. There seems to be a feeling o f anxious curiousity to see which if any will develop into the next Katrina. Nevermind that decades passed between major hurricane disasters in the past. Some people are determined that Katrina II is coming this year. Some of this could be put down to soothsayers who have said Katrina was a sign of end times, but is that all of it. I would like to believe so.

I don't want to believe that some people in their secret hearts want to see another disaster because it is exciting or it affirms their beliefs, religous, political, or other. I don't want to believe that people watched the endless hours of September 11th coverage because it fascinated and excited them. I don't want to believe that people watched the O.J. Simpson car chase because they were curious to see if he would commit suicide and wanted to be the first on their block to know if he did. I don't want to believe that people slow down at a car crash to see if they can see a body. I don't want to believe that some people get upset if the details are left out of a murder on the news. I don't want to believe that some peoples belief in hell comforts them to know that those they despise will be tortured. I really don't want to believe any of these things.