On Death and Dying...

Author's Note: I'm publishing this now, after some consternation. I have many friends who are devout, and I respect that and them so much, I was a bit scared to post this. But, if I am to accept them and their differences of belief, it should also go this way as well--they'll respect my process and thinking. So, after some wait, there y'all go. Penelope is doing much better-if just a bit tired. 

As my dear dog hangs in the balance, yes, I have some deep thoughts I have to attend to. I'm posting this on my main boards, for I feel it is a discussion many have had before me. And, perhaps, long after we have departed. I'm thinking this will end up a discussion about life and death, I'm sad to say, and my views at this very moment. I will say, having now been married, very happily, for so long, my whole concept of life and death has changed. 

And this moment, as my corgi's life hangs before me, I find it might be time to re-evaluate some parts of it.

When I saw the movie The Invention of Lying, it was the first time I understood atheism. The film is about a man who lives in a world without fiction, where no one has the abilty to lie, and he comes to the sad conclusion that his mother is dying. He elects to invent an afterlife at her bedside, to ease the pain of both himself and her. The film is a comedy, if you can believe that, with terrific moments about the need for lying.  For example, a blind date he goes on has his paramour speaking truthfully in front of him--about he wasn't going to get laid any time soon. As the story progress, humor drops a bit as he begins to show the audience that organized religion is a construct of the human imagination. 

Makes sense coming from an atheist. 

I bring this movie up because I've been listening to much about atheism lately. No, I don't plan on accepting the fact that evidence is truly on their side. But the recent screaming by religions about my small, inconsequential, family tells me volumes. The President makes a plan so everyone get money for health care. Churches run hospitals, but are bothered by this.  Churches go to Haiti to give aid by handing out Bibles. Huh? Where's the food? Yes, many churches do give, but, strangely, they seem to decry the weirdiest of things. Churches waddling into the gun debate and personal choice. Churches telling people their kids won't get into heaven unless they date the opposite gender.

The list goes on and on. 

And it made me cold to religion.  

It's why I prefer my Buddhism and my Taoism, to any Christian church, I'm sad to say. And with every protest (a church protesting...can you believe it???), I get a bit more distant.

But I have not joined the ranks of the atheists either.  Perhaps "agnostic" is my term, but I hate that label too. I just like to think of myself as "Roo." Let the chips fall where they may.

I have need of faith when my dog lie dying and I lay on the wooden floor next to her. I was not ready to let her go into that good night. I thought, suddenly, about faith. Like a child, suddenly needing the parents' input when trouble arrived, not when things were going well, perhaps. I thought about the tales of the soul and how the church has actively said that dogs don't have one--so they don't have to picket outside of the Humane Society.  

So, where was my religion now? Was my dog to maybe to head to heaven? She's been good. She's been loved and has loved back.

If there is a heaven, she deserved it. I did not, however, deserve this pain of loving her more than myself. I could not lose her. As I held her in the dark, I wished, so strongly, that the afterlife was real...not for me or my pain. But for her. She deserved all the pleasures that a good dog had earned in being who she was. She deserved to play for infinite seasons, to eat snacks with abandon and to love all how gave her praises. She did not deserve suffering. 

 

Sidenote:  I have heard that dogs and cats stay alive to ease our sufferings, only releasing themselves from mortal bonds when the strain is too much--further the belief that, maybe, just maybe, they have a soul...and we don't.  She should not have stayed for me or my husOtter.

I became that character in the movie, in sense.

But now, as I think about it....no.  I don't buy religion and their trappings.  

I do believe that there is more. 

The need for faith, and a place to direct our vicious hope, is unavoidable. If we are allowed to love, as part of our basal set of emotions, along with crying and fear, then we have to a reason for it. Being in a loving relationship has long been proven to help us live longer, the love of a pet can prolong our life must longer than without. 

Maybe that's faith.

A place to put our hopes, like a thumbtack on a corkboard. 

Such deep thoughts are the result of the possible demise of my little furry friend, Penelope, the crazed corgi. She started having issues about a week ago; it has progressed to the point where she's pooping on herself and is unable to function healthily. We've begun to run low on cash, and, like the national situation with insurance, the decisions are escalting a bit more and more and the resources are milked dry. I am forced to face the fact that I may not be able to change the trajedectory she is currently on. 

The pain is emotional, but my brain is reading it as physical. I cannot function with any kind of producivity. 

So I'll write. The irony is not wasted. 

But since that little movie, I have been questioning my faith. I feel I've perhaps turned my back on certain aspects. I keep wishing to claim this is some kind of cosmic punishment, some kind of creature in the sky is pointing its finger at me and my small family as a divine retribution for not trying hard enough to heal people. 

Or is it my dog is simply sick and too old to solve her issues?

And will either path give me a moment to breathe?

An interesting situation has developed too, between someone I admire and myself. See, well, he's an atheist. A darn loud one to. He decries religion on my many facets. I sometimes engage him; most of the time, I allow him all the comforts of freedom of speech. Here's the tic. 

He asked me to be his reference on several job applications and resumes. Me? Even he has called me and casually mentioned that I'm probably too religious for him, being I meditated daily. Still, he asked me this, this most private and important things? Even when he disses my causality of faith? 

Or maybe, and this is my greatest hope, that there is room for both of us on this plane of existence. 

And, in the end, I hope there is a tiny, small heaven, consisting of all the dogs have passed on to a Rainbow Bridge. Tails waggin'. If such a place exists, then, of course, I want go there.

Peace, 

Roo