Mid-Life Crisis Songs #50: The Great Beyond

This is an addendum to Monday's post and you might prefer not to read it as it's a bit maudlin, but I'm writing it for the same reason I write lots of things on this blog. To remember. Because we forget so much as life goes on, and it's important to write things down. A blog is just a diary, after all.

I guess I've been lucky, but I've never actually had to watch an animal be put to sleep before. Molly, our last cat, was euthanised... but she was seriously ill and the vet did it while we weren't there. (I'm not sure they were supposed to, to be honest, but we didn't make a fuss.) Prior to that, the pets I had as a child or even young adult, my parents bore the responsibility when their time had come.

But, knowing that he'd reached the end of the road, Louise and I both wanted to be there with Murphy when he passed. This involved a slight flouting of the lockdown rules, I will confess, because we really didn't want Sam to have to come with us. So a neighbour, the mother of one of Sam's school friends, came and sat in our garden, talking to Sam through the patio doors while we were gone, looking after him... from a safe distance. What a world.

We'd booked the earliest possible appointment at the vets, but that's obviously when they're dealing with a lot of the terminal cases. The car park was full of sobbing pet owners, saying their last goodbyes. Under the lockdown rules, we weren't allowed to go inside the surgery, so the vet came out to the car park, collected Murphy, took him inside to confirm out worst fears, and then brought him back outside when it was time. We opened up the hatchback boot of Louise's car, lay Murphy in his cat basket, sat with him and stroked him while the vet administered the sedative.

It's an awful experience. Necessary, because you don't want your pet to suffer any more, but still... the responsibility of making that decision, and then being there for them while it happens... it's not something I'd wish on anyone. If this is what being a grown-up is about, I'm with the Ramones.



After that, I flouted curfew a little more and took Murphy to my sister's house. (Again, social distancing was maintained throughout. My brother-in-law stood way across the garden the whole time, my sister was nowhere to be seen.) She lives out in the countryside and has a field just outside her house where's she's buried a few pets over the years. We wanted Murphy to be there with Ben (mental sheepdog) and Thomas (very affectionate black moggy). I know cremation is the way for most pets these days, but I grew up on a farm.

The first pet I ever remember losing was another sheepdog, Fly. I must have been about 8 and I cried for a week. In the end, my dad took my out to the field where he'd buried her, gave me a hammer and chisel, and told me to chisel her name into the dry stone wall. That really helped. It gave me closure.

Although I've never been present at a euthanasia before, I have buried other pets. Molly, I buried in the back garden of our previous home. But this new house... as with a lot of new-builds these days... I can guarantee I couldn't have dug deeper than a foot into the flower patch here without hitting hardcore.

So Murphy is in my sister's field, and I did get a little closure by burying him there. But that doesn't stop me waking up in the night and feeling guilty. Wanting to go dig him up and check... just make sure... because I hate the thought of him being alone down there in the cold. (But Pet Sematary was the first Stephen King book I ever read, so no.)

Anyway, he's not there anymore, is he? Louise, a confirmed atheist, struggled with how to explain death to Sam. "I'm not going to say he's in cat heaven with Molly!" In the end, we agreed I would talk to Sam about all the different things people believe and tell him that when he's older he'll be able to make up his own mind. Because nobody knows what happens when we die. Some people think they know, and will try to tell you that what they believe is the truth, but in the end: nobody knows. I was brought up C of E, Sunday school and everything. I'm more of agnostic now. I want to believe, like Mulder. In something. Maybe in the back of my mind, the idea of cat heaven isn't such a bad one. It may be a crutch, but damn it if I don't need all the crutches I can get.