This morning, the afterwards, we cleaned out the stall where Deb died, washed away the blood and poured bleach over the stains. There is no trace of her now.
There was an emptiness, for sure, something missing. Our farm is an intimate place, we see our animals every day, and more than once. You can feel it when something is gone. When you photograph something, you are connected in a very powerful way.
For all the emotionalizing and drama around animals and their grief, we see once more that animals do not waste too much time in grief. For all the mythology, I have never seen an animal of mine, dog or livestock, grieve for another animal, it is so easy to read confusion and disorientation off to our kind of mourning.
The sheep who lived so closely with Deb were happily grazing just a few yards away from the barn and her dead body. They have let go and moved on, we shall do the same.
There is something particular about killing an animal you have cared for, photographed, fed and helped to birth. It is very different from the animal grieving and loss of a pet – someone else does the killing, someone else helps you decide. First there is the matter of deciding, and of owning the decision.
Guilt has no place in my life, certainly not when it comes to making decisions about animals.
When a dog or cat dies, you do the crying, the vet does the killing and usually some soothing. They felt no pain, it was for the best. When you decide to kill a sheep or other farm animal, it is strictly between you and your God, as it should be. There is no one to say it was the right thing, and in my case, I feel my responsibility is to do the killing myself if I can, as quickly and efficiently as possible. I know it is quick if I do it.
I find as I get older that it is harder and harder to do, but still important.
When I wrote my book on animal grieving, “Going Home,” I learned two important things. One was that almost all of the people who told me how helpful it was ignored my advice pretty much completely, they saw in the book what they wished to see and simply skipped over the rest.
For all that, I’m glad if it was helpful.
Secondly, guilt is a poison when it comes to animal loss and death
I saw that the people who felt the most guilt usually had no reason to feel guilty, they made good decisions. The people who made poor decisions and cared the least didn’t feel any guilt at all.
In my research on animal grieving, every therapist, vet, shrink and psychologist I spoke with told me precisely the same thing: Animal grieving has become intense, disturbing, and often out of control. Many psychiatrists think it is a public health issue.
Human grief over animals is inextricably tied to human emotion, loss and suffering. When animal grieving goes on for too long or is too intense – we all know people like this – then it is not about the animal, it is about us. When people tell me they are crying over my sheep, I know that their grief is not about my sheep, it is about their own losses in life.
I have learned to separate my grief from any animal’s death. If I were to grieve too long or too painfully, I would seek to find out what it was I was really grieving for, we often project the painful losses in our lives onto animals. Animals are empty vessels, and silent. We can put all of our pain and sorrow into them if we wish.
For me, it is not about what I need, it is about what they need. That is what it means for me to love an animal. I am grateful to the many good people who messaged me to express sympathy and sorrow for our loss. Those messages are helpful, appreciated and comforting.
When I have a sick and dying dog, I feel gratitude and relief that I can be their advocate, and help them leave the world in dignity and comfort. In my hospice work, I have often wished we were evolved enough to do the same for human beings.
I recoil when people approach me as if I have experienced a tragedy. That’s too much, it goes too far.
One former colleague of mine was killed in a car crash last week, a local photographer was undergoing surgery for cancer at the same time Deb was being shot. A mother lost her son in a boating accident while he was off to college. Ghazala Khan and her husband lost her son in Iraq.
Those are tragedies.
The death of a sheep or a dog is not, at least not to me. I don’t wish for that degree of comforting.
So the death of an animal for me is always the chance to sort things out, to keep perspective, to remind myself that life is death and death is life, and we cannot have one without the other.
It is not about me, it is about the very balance of existence. The death of an animal is, to me, always a lesson about what it means to be a human being.
Thank again for the nice messages. They are truly appreciated.