by William Skink
Last Sunday our cat, Tiger, was killed, we think by a car on the dirt road where we live. Our neighbors, who we haven’t talked to once in the 3 years since we’ve lived at our current address, found him on the road and put him in the trash.
The wife came out when she heard me calling for him as I biked down the road. I’m glad she did, because they’re moving out, and I’m not sure they would have put much effort into reaching out had I not been biking down our road hoping for the best.
The best didn’t happen for us, and our two oldest are devastated. There was lots of crying, from all of us, except the little one who didn’t really understand what had happened.
So why am I telling you this sad pet death story? I have two reasons.
The first one is life is hard and taking a step back can be a good thing. Maybe a few weeks, maybe months, I don’t know.
The second one is be present for the people in your life who matter. Grief is a process thrust upon all of us at some point. Give grief the space to breathe. Teach your kids emotional intelligence.
Especially our boys, who need it most.
JC
Travis Mateer
“Our neighbors, who we haven’t talked to once in the 3 years since we’ve lived at our current address…
,,,be present for the people in your life who matter.”
a neighbor who is more worried about his lawn than making any effort to communicate with us is not an example of someone in my life who matters, neither is someone who trolls a personal post like this, so kindly fuck off.
You actually own a home, in the Slant Street District, I believe…and you don’t talk to the people living next to you for 3 years?
That’s fucked up, man.
GS, must be the Don Knotts of deputies if he slued out your location….lol Condolences. We need to catch up…. call me.
I may need to upgrade him from troll to stalker. and yes, we do need to catch up 🙂
Being a Dad, I’m sure you explained to your boys that dying is part of life, which is the same thing we had to learn as children. My kids never let me toss a pet in the garbage, I have had ‘funerals’ for pet birds even. Time will heal it.