Anecdote, Vegetable, or Mineral: An Informal Analysis of Informal Stories

On the Dog-Grief Narrative
Continued from August 3, 2010



Bella Anne Rabinovitz
November 29, 19?? – July 20, 2010










EPILOGUE: BELLA’S ASHES
I recently retrieved Bella’s ashes from the veterinary hospital, Burlington Emergency & Veterinary Specialists (BEVS). The staffer who brought me the ashes, which were contained in metal box about as large as a recipe box and adorned in a tasteful floral pattern, offered an appropriately sympathetic look as I took the box. She could have handed them to me over the reception counter, but she came around to deliver them face-to-face. Naturally, the exchange triggered memories of the last time I was there, and I felt a wave of sadness envelop me. It would have been easy for me to muster tears then, just as it was during Bella’s final hours.

I did not cry, however. As I left, I also remembered how considerately and compassionately Bella, Laura, and I were all treated at the hospital, and this reassured me that Bella’s death, like her life, was as gentle as possible given her challenging circumstances.

We spread the ashes in a few places that Bella favored: the park, some routes she trod on neighborhood walks, that spot at the end of our former driveway where she used to stand — or, rather, lie — sentry. As we spread her ashes, we spun other narratives for one another: where I would let her out of my truck to roam, where she used to roll in the grass, where she used to sniff around for food scraps. Recalling these details now, they seem trivial. Still, I found them comforting. Such is the emotionally ordering effect of even the simplest dog-grief narrative.

A coincidental aside: Leaving the park after spreading some of Bella's ashes, we waited to cross the road. Inside the first car to pass by were two Catholic priests, distinguishable as such by their collars. Behind each rear seat back of their car, facing us, was a stuffed dog. The toys were, I believe, likenesses of Saint Bernards, not golden retrievers. But, still, quite a coincidence.... Laura remarked that seeing a rabbi pass by would have been more coincidental, as Bella was Jewish.

We then took a family walk to the bakery around the corner from our former home — a favorite outing of Bella’s on weekend mornings. On those mornings, we’d clip her up outside and go inside to get her a biscuit. This was one of the rare occasions when she might bark. We thought about buying a biscuit just for old time’s sake but, in the end, did not.

Her food and water bowl, her beds, her toys, and the container in which we stored her food have been stored in the basement for that time, probably a few years from now, when we adopt a dog that, we hope, possesses some of Bella’s fine qualities.