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Saturday, January 23, 2010

Condolences to the TBoggs -- again
Posted by Jill | 10:24 PM
When I was a kid, we always had dogs. I always figured I was a dog person. Oh, later on we always had a cat too, but I was always the kind of person who'd cross the street to pet a dog. I still like dogs, but after 26 years of having cats, I guess you could say I've become kind of a crazy cat lady.

I don't blog about my cats as much as some people do. This is mostly because I have trouble taking photos of Maggie doing something cute, or Jenny being regal. Maybe other people's cats are just more interesting. I know that John Cole's cat, Tunch, is about to get his image on Cafe Press swag.

Some bloggers allow us to know their pets so well that they become a part of our lives as much as theirs. I've always had a particular fondness for TBogg's Thursday Basset Blogging, where weekly updates of the adventures of Satchmo, Beckham, and more recently Fenway, would demonstrate to audiences the perfect confluence of soulful sadness and silliness that is the Basset Hound.

When Satchmo passed away about a year ago, it was a loss to the entire blogging community, as we'd all come to know the ever-patient dog with the sad, sad face. I wrote about Satchmo's passing here. The Tboggs' other Basset Hound, Beckham, seemed to be a whippersnapper with years ahead of him, but alas it was not to be.

There's something about Bassets. A friend of mine had had a Basset many years ago, and when her daughter passed away suddenly a few years ago, she decided it was time to bring another Basset into her life to help her through -- and ended up with two of them. As I said -- the perfect confluence of soulful and silly.

I don't know why the loss of pets we've never really seen owned by people we don't know can affect us so deeply. Perhaps it's because so many of us who blog are pet people, owned by pets with larger-than-life personalities that lend themselves to share in the blogging process. And of course all of us who are pet people know what the TBoggs are going through, because most of us have been there, and if we haven't, we will.

I know that with Maggie being ten years old now, I'm more patient with her near-constant yowling. I don't get as irritated with her demands the way I used to. When she comes up on the bed and puts one par under my neck and one over it and spoons me and purrs in my ear, I try to etch it into my brain because I have to realize she won't be with me forever. It's part of the bargain we make when we open our hearts to these creatures. And we make that bargain gladly, again and again. But it still hurts like hell when we have to pay up.

And so once again, our thoughts are with the TBoggs tonight. We wish Beckham a speedy passage over the bridge and we wish Fenway a complete recovery.

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Blogger Distributorcap said...
i still hurt from the loss of George --- pets affect you in a way that is just undescribe-able - every pet i have ever owned (dogs and cats) has gotten under my skin so deeply -- they bring such joy (and of course when they pass, incredible sadness)

we see something in pets that we just dont see in people - pure innocence and love - and not one iota of judgment.

and that is something a human can never give.
1/24/10, 2:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
As a pet lover, this quote pretty well sums up the pain of pet loss for me. But, I will bear the loss in trade for their companionship.

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan."
Irving Townsend

Peace
1/24/10, 11:19 PM  
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