Today we had to put Max (our dog) down.  This dog lived for seventeen years, far beyond the lifespan of most dogs.  He had a good life, not having to do much during those 17 years, but chew up a few good shoes, go on a walks or hikes and just lay around being a friend.  Lately though, he was having a hard time laying down, he was deaf and his eyesight was failing.  He recently had cancer surgery in his mouth and it was hard for him to eat.  The last few days he had stopped eating and so we knew it was time. 

Tonya and her boys took him to the vet this morning and he was giving that permanent sleeping potion.  They shed some tears.

Me, not so much.  I remember a few years back when Missy, my little dog had to be put down and there was a tear shed for her.  Funny how these dogs can become an important part of your life.

I was thinking back to when my father died, I was sad and yes some tears were shed because a man I loved had now passed on and I would not see him again in this life.  But, mostly death does not cause me a lot of anxiety or mourning.

As I thought about this today, my calloused view to Max’s death or the lack of mourning that I may do, I decided to call my mother and ask her about my mournless self.  She mentioned that she is something like that, and had probably passed it on to me and possibly my siblings.  I accepted that as a good explanation.

After returning from the vet, Tonya came in and asked if I could come out and help bury Max in the hole that a neighbor had dug with his backhoe.  As I stood back from the hole with my gloves on and a shovel in my hand, I had an epiphany.  I thought back to the days when Doug and I worked in the Iona cemetery.  Not only did we mow, edge, and water the grass, but we were also responsible for digging the graves and burying the bodies.  I say bodies, because as far as I know we never buried a live person.

As I stood waiting to shovel dirt on Max, I remembered standing at the other end of the cemetery, waiting for all the mourners to leave.  Though we may have been in a hurry to finish our job of covering the casket and smoothing the dirt on top, we would always wait until the last of the mourners had left the cemetery before shoveling dirt into the hole.  I remember there were times when some people would just hang around to talk about the person and cry some more about the loss.

We would stand there looking at our watches wondering how long they were going to be.  We, being teenagers at the time, had things to do and places to go and the last thing we wanted to do was sit in the cemetery waiting for people to leave.

So, maybe we became a bit calloused with death, but we would always respect the mourners and wait until the last of them were gone.  Every once in a while, someone would stay behind and watch as the cement vault was put on the casket and then the dirt on the vault.  As we were shoveling dirt back into the hole, I would often think about the expense that people would pay for the casket, just to be covered with an ugly cement vault and then six feet of dirt.  I could never quite understand all that expense for something that would be buried in six feet of dirt.

After Max was buried, I called my mother back and told her that it was not her fault, but it was the many bodies that Doug and I buried at the Iona Cemetery that had caused me to be a bit calloused with death.

Death became a non event in my life or should I say, another paycheck.  Doug and I buried a lot of bodies and it was a job and nothing out of the ordinary for us.  In fact, at my Dad’s funeral I remember looking around and saw the men waiting to bury my Dad and thought, we need to hurry this up so they can get on with their day.  I knew my Dad was not there, just his body and so, I was good with taking all the memories and leaving the body.

As I write this here today, I don’t want you to think that I am uncaring, but when it comes to death I have come to accept it as a life event and none of us can escape its grasp.  The sadness comes, when death takes from us something that we have built over a lifetime,  the love for another person or maybe an animal.  Death is permanent and after, what is left are all the memories and stories.

If the truth be told, that is what this BLOG is all about.  The stories and memories of us and those that have passed on.  They live on through these stories.