Everyone’s Dogs are Dying

Deirdre Cunniffe

People say there isn’t much from 17-20 years old. Sure, you’re a legal adult when you turn 18, but that pretty much only opens up opportunities to vote and buy a lighter from a Walgreens. I would disagree. 17-20 is a very specific era of someone’s life. It’s the time when everyone’s dogs are dying.

As we enter 17-20, our beloved family pets, the ones we’ve had our whole lives, or for as long as we can remember, normally turn 15-18. They’re aging and we’re aging. We’re getting ready to start the next chapter of our lives, and they’re getting ready to cross the rainbow bridge. We can’t go with them, and they can’t come with us.

We learned to tie our shoelaces and they learned to sit. They learned to shake hands and we learned times-tables. They learned how to walk on a leash; we learned to jump rope. We all, simultaneously, learned not to eat grass.

We are all moving forward and leaving home and things are changing and the lab across the street that’s been there for years turned 16 the other day and I’m starting to worry. He’s not even mine. When I get my acceptance and rejection letters from colleges, he is there, laying in the sun, and when my mailbox creaks and he looks across the street,, his tail thunks against the pavement and my heart hurts. There is a day when he won’t be there. I probably won’t be there either.

What horrific symbolism. Why must we lose our best friends as some sort of metaphor for the passage of time? I wish I could steal some of the longevity of abstract comparison and give it to the lab across the street.

We are all growing in the physical sense, we are all growing in the metaphorical sense, and everyone’s dogs are dying.