Losing a Friend

This past week, my host family's puppy, Bucky (short for Buckingham, from The Three Musketeers) passed away. This was a sudden passing, which started at the end of the week before, when Bucky stopped eating, and anything that was forcibly given would come right back up. We were baffled, and the local vet was only able to diagnose it as dog "plague." I'm translating, but it's either dog plague or dog pestilence, according to my dictionary, and neither option is particularly informative as a diagnosis. Our main theory is that he ate something that effectively was poisonous to his system, and we were unable to get him to a proper vet in time. By the time when we realized he really needed it, I think he would have required an IV and blood work, which we could not have afforded.

Still, Bucky was my baby. Against my host family's reservations he was even known to sleep inside. Pause for gasp. I've been fortunate in my pet ownership that my family's dogs have all been long-lived. Our first dog, Beauregard, lived until I was in elementary school, and our next dog, Maggie, died when I was abroad in India. Now we have Lucy. Our other pets have not lasted as long, including some fish that made the mistake of living in elementary school me's bedroom when I and my friends enjoyed jumping on beds while playing catch. My mom still remembers the water gushing out onto the carpet floor.

I was expecting my host parents to take a more traditionally non-Western attitude towards animals, that they are animals and should be treated as such, not as family members. But my host mother was very upset at the loss, and mourned him over tea that night. My host father helped my dig the grave, and though he made a point of saying that animals don't get funerals, I think he realized he might have been a bit insensitive to how I was feeling, because later that evening, he came to me explaining that you do not have to treat animals that way, or wish them to heaven, because God automatically absolves them (the same goes for kids, apparently). I knew he cared because he clearly looked up both "absolve" and "sin." Thank you, Ata.

Thank you, Bucky, for making my life happy for the five months you were a part of it. Maybe you chewed on my fingers too much, but I will miss you. You were a great little buddy. I hope that in whatever dog heaven you're in, you're happy.