...I began reading Marley and Me over Christmas Break. I'd heard good things, the movie was coming out and I'm the type that really likes to read the book before seeing the movie, even though the movie is never as good. So last night, I sat down and read the last 6 chapters...again against my better judgment.
I'm not going to go into detail about the book, but I will say that I was crying so hard that I was hyperventalating and really think that I was close to passing out because I couldn't catch my breath. I really didn't think that I would be affected this way. I know that I cry about everything, so I shouldn't have been surprised but I was.
I think that I was most affected because I've seen both ends of the spectrum - I have a puppy but my family had a dog for 16 years that had to be put to sleep about 2 years ago. Sugar, my first pet, was a humane society pet that had been serverly abused and was very close to being put to sleep when my Dad went and picked her out. She wasn't much to look at - her teeth were rotten from the malnutrience she experienced as a puppy with her first family, she was terrified of thunderstorms because they had left her on the side of the road in a crate for several weeks before someone took her to the pound, she was scared of kids (one of the reasons she wasn't as close to me as she was my mother) and by the end of her life, she was blind and deaf. Nonetheless, she was ours. My first pet.
I was away at college in the middle of mid-terms when she had to be put down. My parents decided that it was better for me to not know until after I came home for Spring Break. I didn't get to say goodbye. That was one reason I had such a hard time with this book -I had to live what my parents went through, and that I hadn't understood until now.
Losing a pet is so hard. They truely do become part of the family. My Mom still hasn't fully gotten over the loss of Sugar, and I realized last night that I hadn't either. However, it also had a more uplifting message for me too. As frustrated as I get with my new puppy, Belle, I realize now that while all these puppy antics are hard, one day she won't be a puppy anymore and I'll miss these days - what I'd imagine having a growing child is like.
If you haven't read, read it, but have a box of Kleenex with you :)
