...is when it comes time for an animal to go. Our sweet Pumpkin, our orange cat with mega personality, has had his battles. When we first got him, he was terrified. He stayed under the couch in the basement for several days. Gradually he came out and began slinking around the house. Hunger has a way of doing that! It was years before he would let us directly approach him; more years before he would let us pet him; and he never ever liked for anyone to hold him. We figure he must have had some kind of a rough time before he landed at the shelter; then again, it could have had something to do with the time we put the sock on his head and died laughing as the cat ran full steam BACKWARDS all around the house! We did apologize, but he did not accept the apology because thereafter, a sock on the head brought only sitting down and waiting for us to take it off.We thought we were going to lose him a couple months ago, but he rallied and almost seemed normal for a while. But we've noticed lately incredibly labored breathing, and this morning when I went to pick him up it was manifest he'd lost tons of weight. He was also growing weak. I set him down like I normally do: drop a foot from the floor or so, and he almost fell over. The breathing was so bad this morning that I didn't think it really could or should wait. So I took him to the vet's and they euthanized him.
But Bekah didn't know this was going to happen today when she left for school (shoot, I didn't know either) and she will be very upset about it. And the others will be too, I'm sure. It was the right thing to do for the little fellow - just watching him at the Vet convinced me of that - but it is hard for the family to lose a pet of so many years (he's lived with us since the early 90's), and with no good byes from anyone but me.
I told Pumpkin all the way to the Vet: "Siehe, ich mache alles neu." And I reminded him that gave us both some hope. Rest in peace, little friend. You were a great companion. Perhaps we'll meet again - and you'll be so healed you will even let me hold you.
21 comments:
Oh dear, I can so relate to this. My current canine companion is now going on eleven years old and I see the age in his face.
Thanks to the marvels of modern veterinary medicine we have some pretty powerful meds to give him when the arthritis kicks in but I know that eventually that won't be enough and that beloved furry face won't be there to enthusiastically greet me at the door.
The animal companions I have known over my life have been such a gift to me from the One who created them in their marvelous array.
I, too, share the hope (as did the great C.S. Lewis) that those creatures who have shared our lives with us on our earthly journey will be present in the life to come.
In wisdom You have made them all, the earth is full of Your creatures.
I had to peer at the German a moment before I understood it. Then suddenly I found I was peering through water.
Beautiful.
Yes, the Lord Jesus did promise to make all things new -- and creation awaits with eager longing.
Even though Pumpkin wasn't my favorite of your pets I'm sorry for your loss and that it was so abrupt.
Deb
When I first met my (late) wife Nancy, she had an already aging pet cat, Smokie. She was later joined by a boy kitty Zeke and a girl dog Sheba. Not to mention two boys! Smokie lasted some years even after Nancy died. She passed away herself, and I was the one who found her. The boys and I held a funeral of sorts for her in a corner of the back yard. I officiated, as it were.
Zeke and Sheba are now in their teens, so the time is coming sometime and the boys know it, which won't make it any easier to not have a pet known all one's life, and one their departed mother chose.
Get this: when Smokie died she had crawled to the same spot where Nancy's respit bed was when she died. Kind of freaked me out.
My former synod said since Scripture doesn't speak of pets and eternity neither will they and there is no basis to assume they will be there. Among the many things I like better in my current synod is that while Scripture doesn't directly speak of eternity and pets it doesn't directly contradict it either and there is no reason to assume they won't be there.
My sympathies.
I'm so sorry. The loss of a pet is difficult to bear.
Deepest condolences on the death of Pumpkin.
We lost two of our very geriatric furkinder this past winter, one crawled into my lap at breakfast and I held him and kept his mouth moist for sixteen hours while he died.
Hospice training comes in very handy with kitties and dogs.
With Lewis, the knowledge that all things will be made new is assurance that nothing in Creation shall be lost.
May Punpkin scamper like a kitten where the food dish is never empty and the litter box is never full.
Thanks to all for the kind words. Fr. Hank, your words also reminded me of the line from The Hound of Heaven about where we find all that God takes from us.
So sorry to hear about Pumpkin, the feline member of your family.
I've been there, done that. It really hurts. I even had the experience once of having to euthanize a dog one morning with no chance to consult the family.
I still cry when I euthanize some poor wild creature someone has brought me that is beyond help.
God didn't take Pumpkin from you. The one who has the power of death (the Athanasius quote you posted) causes death: the devil. All creation, through Adam's sin, has fallen into his power, and death is HIS weapon. God simply insists upon determining, according to His lovingkindness and compassion and wisdom, the best time for it to take full effect.
With others here, I cannot believe God will permit any beautiful work of His hand simply to vanish into oblivion. I look forward to encountering many wild animals and pets in the hereafter!
love and tears,
Anastasia
With others here, I cannot believe God will permit any beautiful work of His hand simply to vanish into oblivion. I look forward to encountering many wild animals and pets in the hereafter!
To which I add my hearty Amen, Anastasia!!
Thank you for posting Pumpkin's picture, Pastor. His coloring is very similar to a small orange kitten that mysteriously showed up on my sister's front porch many years ago and was welcomed into the family.
Your post brought back memories of Chloe, the long-haired calico, whom we nursed through chronic renal failure for about 8 months. When considering God's creatures, I am reminded that the ark, a type of salvation and new creation, was chock full of creatures, great and small. It just wouldn't be a "new creation" without them, including those whom we have named and loved as our animal companions.
This is an excerpt of a little piece I wrote when Chloe died. I thought it might be appropriate here.
For twelve short years and a few months
We danced as Man and Beast together
Vestige of Eden’s paradise lost
And foretaste of New Creation gained
Where lion and lamb lie down in peace together.
Now rest well, my dear calico companion,
In the Ark that once embraced your ancient ancestor
Beneath the multicolored rainbow,
Sacrament of God’s Promise that
Death gives way to Life.
Rest in the Word who made you
And held you firmly in His death
One good dark Friday
Between the hours of Noon and Three;
And who holds you still in His eternal Being
Until that Day we dance anew
On fresh green grass of Promised Land.
William,
That is beautiful. Thank you!
We recently put our Sophie to sleep. She was the best border collie in the world. It isn't a fun role. When we took her in, we were hoping that there was some hope also, so I held the kids in the waiting room while we cried and my husband held Sophie while the vet put her to sleep. He also took care of the body of our collie who got hit last year.
It's not a fun role, but from the bottom of my heart I am thankful for strong daddies who "do the dirty work." when times like these come.
Rebellious,
The worst for me was when our beagle, Luther, was hit on the road in front of our house. It was winter and the ground was frozen - and old Luther weighed a ton. I wanted to bury him before the kids saw him - it was not a pretty sight. But I am not a physically strong person, and digging in the frozen soil was just about impossible. I did manage to get it done somehow, but poor Luther ended up forming quite a "mound." I was always terrified he'd start popping through in the Spring, but it didn't happen - Gott sei Dank!
Now, if our Lord grants old Luther (the dog) a resurrection, I sure hope that his nasty smell doesn't come with him. We could bathe him and within an HOUR, he'd stink to high heaven again. He was hopeless! And we dearly loved him.
I'm in the right synod all right.
When I was a kid, my first pet was a beagle named Pal. Before leash laws. He was a beagle used to being a beagle, and didn't really get the city council's decision. As he got older too, my folks said they got him a new home on a farm. It never occured to me until years later maybe something else happened. My second pet was a Scottish Terrier named Brindy, who got bladder cancer and was taken to the vet -- by Dad.
Now I'm Dad. I remember one time playing in the back yard when the boys were about five or six, the younger one came upon a dead garter snake. He held it up and said Dad, look. I told him to put it down, but the older one kept looking at it, and when I went over to him he said, Mom died.
For just a moment I was, pardon the phrase, really pissed. I thought this isn't how it should be. Kids should play in the back yard, go in with mom and dad, have dinnner, go to bed, mom and dad think about how nice life is, etc. I shouldn't have to be out here explaining to my kid about death, dead snakes and dead moms. Then I thought, OK Mr Elder (I wasn't "past" then) it can go either way, you can make this all about you, or you can be an elder and make this about being of help to someone else, in this case a little boy having trouble sorting it all out. I took the latter route, but by the grace of God only.
The time is coming for Zeke and Sheba. I'm grateful to Pastor and the commentators that besides our heavy theological and synodical matters we can share about stuff like this, where the rubber REALLY meets the road. You guys let me know I'm where I belong!
PS -- and yes, I think he when he said he makes all things new, he meant all things, all creation, and that allows a place for all the pets mentioned -- even garter snakes.
Beautiful, past elder. BUT do we HAVE to have the Garter snakes??? ;) Hey, I'm sure God will make even the snakes be somehow less repulsive.
I'll never forget when I first read Schmemann and he got through to me on "all things new" and not "new things." Wow. What joy!
I don't like them much myself. But when we bought the house, I made a deal. Went over to the railroad tie landscaping where they like to hang, and said You don't mess with me in my house and I don't mess with you in yours.
Saw the first one of the season out mowing Saturday. Pulled the mower back and let him go. A deal's a deal.
I think if God can make me somehow less repulsive in eternity, a snake is a piece of cake!
Certainly we ahve to hav garter snakes! They're beautiful.
Once upon a time, I rescued a black snake from the middle of the road. It was basking there and as I drove by, I thought, "You, poor snake, are going to get run over," so without giving it another thought, I backed up, opened the car door, grabbed the snake, and put her on the floor of the passenger side of the car.
By time I got home, she had disappeared. My husband looked under the hood, in the trunk. We even removed the seats. No snake.
We found her when he went to water the lawn. Our garden hose was black and when my husband went to pick it up, he found himself in possession of the snake instead. She had been coiled up with the coils of hose, perfectly camouflaged. We thought what admirable intelligence -- in a reptile!
We put her in a terrarium and named her Simone and admired the loops and knots she made with her graceful body.
After about 10 days I thought Simone was probably getting hungry. (Snakes only eat about that often.) I wasn't going to toss her a chick or a frog, so I released her.
Later that afternoon, I found my neighbor beating a black snake to death with a shovel. She apologized repeatedly when I told her she had killed my precious Simone. I told her I understood. She had 3 small children to "protect" and didn't know this snake was harmless (in fact, beneficial, keeping rodents away).
So I assured her I wouldn't hold it against her, and I realized I shouldn't have scared my neighbors by releasing a snake in the vicinity, and it was my fault and I would know better next time.
Then, in sadness, I went inside to get ready for a dinner party we were giving. My husband had brought me a very long, elegant piece of driftwood, into which he had drilled holes to make a candelabra out of it. I was trying to see if I could construct a decent-looking, four-foot tray out of aluminum foil, to set the candelabra upon, to catch drips of wax, when I saw my neighbor outside again, now talking with a third neighbor. I thought, "I'll just go out there and give her a good-natured bit of a hard time about killing my Simone."
As I walked out the door, the very long candelabra still in my hand, she looked over loudly groaned.
"What's the matter?" I asked, instantly changing my mind about teasing her.
"I can't believe you've made a COFFIN for that snake!"
Anastasia
I'm grateful to Pastor and the commentators that besides our heavy theological and synodical matters we can share about stuff like this, where the rubber REALLY meets the road. You guys let me know I'm where I belong!
Past Elder I, too, am grateful to everyone posting here for their affirmative comments.
It saddens me that some Christians read Scripture in such a wooden manner that they can't even conceive that God truly can make ALL things new in the world to come.
He who made the moon and the stars also made, as James Herriot put it so beautifully, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful and what a blessing they are to us.
At home I have at a copy of a beautiful comment attributed to Martin Luther about a little robin he would feed and how he observed him tucking his beak into his feathers at night and peacefully going to sleep. The robin became an image to him of how we can completely trust our Father to care for us in Christ Jesus.
Also from good Dr. Luther:
Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in words alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
And then there is, of course, the great discourse from "The Brothers Karamazov":
Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants,love everything. If you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery
in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Deo Gratias.
That's a great story, Anastasia.
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