There seems to be at least one thing that I can’t graciously accept, and probably won’t ever really accept: people who tell me what I should be writing and what I should be feeling. I also get irked when people tell me what I am feeling or what my dogs are thinking or feeling as if I couldn’t possibly know and they most certainly can.
Most of the time, I shut up about it, some of the time, I answer back. If you write as often as I do, you learn quickly that in America in 2019, you will most certainly offend somebody even if you say the sun rose in the morning.
It comes with the job. I think grievance is our national currency, we are all victims.
The idea that I might disagree or argue back, or even defend myself seems shocking, even outrageous, to people. On social media, people love to criticize people and tell them what to do, but they tend to get very upset when anybody answers back, that is not in the script.
So of course, I love doing it. Shame on me, I suppose, perhaps its time to ignore what bothers me and walk away. (Forget it.)
I can’t tell you how much I love the fact that the blog gives me so much freedom, I fight for that and never take it for granted. I’ve never had the freedom before to write what I want without anyone telling me what to do. And my blog has grown accordingly.
I’ll never give it up, certainly not without a whale of a fight.
I must have said 1,000 times that I don’t tell other people what to do, I simply write as honestly and authentically as I can about what I do and what I feel. That is never enough. In our country, and on social media, people don’t grasp the idea of free thought or disagreement. If you think independently, you are an enemy, or stupid or lacking in basic decency.
I’ve written for some time about my own individual feelings about grieving, but every time I do, someone gets upset and accuses me of being uncaring, nasty or even vicious. My job is to say what I feel, I promise I will keep doing that.
I grieve greatly for my lost dogs, I shed a lot of tears over Red and miss him a lot.
But I love dogs and I would rather get another one than grieve for Red for months or years. I don’t want another dog today, but I do want another dog, so does Maria. And what usually happens is that I stumble across one – Red, Bud – or one stumbles across me – Rose, Izzy, Lenore, Frieda, Orson.
I love them all, I missed them all intensely, if not equally. Some work out, some are upgraded to places that are better suited for them. If you have a different idea, good on you, that doesn’t bother me a bit, and you are welcome to tell me what your different idea is.
But it’s best if you don’t tell me what I am feeling or should be feeling, or what to write or should be writing. I will most certainly suggest you go somewhere else, for your sake as well as mine. No offense meant, nothing personal. We can’t all love each other all the time.
Last week, a day after Red died, one of my friends – this was a friend – suggested that I lacked empathy for people who grieve for their companion animals (this 24 hours after the death of my dog). When I protested and suggested he had no idea what I felt or didn’t feel, he got quite stuffy about it.
I was, he suggested being overwrought. Don’t you love it when people tell you to calm down?
This was a friend who has exchanged messages with me for several years, why, I asked, didn’t he just ask me how I felt? I suppose Facebook messages are just easier.
You bet, empathy is important to me, and I do not shrug off the suggestion that I don’t have any.
I was struck by how many of the people e-mailing me about Red’s death disagreed with my views on grieving. I wrote a piece I thought was both funny and revealing quoting the differences – not a single poster agreed with me, and I wasn’t in the least offended, as I wrote, but fascinated.
I think this a discussion about grieving is a great dialogue to have online.
But several people that evening were offended. One of them, L— posted this on my blog:
“The blogs I like to follow are those that subscribe to a “radical kindness” vow. I don’t think the people voicing their views about how Fate and Bud reaction to Red’s death (or lack thereof) were malicious.
Why such a prickly reaction from the host of the blog? Sometimes it’s better to be quiet for a while and let events run thru you. Social media promotes knee jerk reactions for everyone involved. Why not wait and be quiet for a few weeks after a good dog’s death?”
There was a stuffy and patronizing tone to L’s message that I don’t generally like, even though there was considerable wisdom in what she was saying. She reminded me of Mrs. McCarthy, my fifth grade English Teacher in Providence, who told me she thought I had great potential if only I would apply myself.
My father said the same thing, he also thought I had great potential, just never realized. After years of self-delusion and lying to myself, I tend to try to tell the truth. Some people don’t like the truth.
I don’t need any vows to write honestly about how I feel. I don’t need L telling me what to write. And I don’t think anybody in the post was malicious, them or me. I don’t care what blogs L follows. I do not accept the idea that I was prickly – we were having a good and healthy dialogue about the different ways to grieve, and lots of people thought my post was funny, including me. I was enjoying and learning from it.
“Prickly,” to L means never arguing or disagreeing with anybody. That is not radical kindness, I practice radical acceptance, but to me to be silent and give up my voice is radical submission. I don’t wish to be watered down, not in my writing, not in my voice.
I’m not her guy. Why not wait and be quiet for a few weeks before telling me what to write, and then how about waiting another few months? Even better, why not read one of those radically kind blogs she likes so much?
I never heard back from her, so perhaps she did go read one of those other blogs, she might be happier, I hope she is. There is undoubtedly some prickliness inside of me, tell me what to write or what I feel and you can find it.
Otherwise, people have been telling me lately what a nice guy I am. Makes me blush, lots of people don’t think so. I suppose I don’t really believe either thing.
Perhaps some Jekyll and Hyde thing going on. I made a promise from the first day of the blog: you get the good Katz and the bad Katz. But you always get the real one. I believe I’m keeping my promise.
My idea of grieving – once again, this is my own way, not yours – is to move quickly, perhaps over several months, to get another dog, the most healing and meaningful response to the death of a beloved dog I can imagine.
I love everything about dogs: getting them, training them, figuring them out, loving them, hopefully, do some good with them, like therapy work, studying them, reading about them, writing about them, even yelling at them, which I sometimes do.
I am not shedding tears for Red any longer, I am beginning to move on, look ahead. That’s how I spend my life, that’s what works for me. If something else works for you, bless you, honest.
When my first wife and I lost two babies, I got some good lessons in grieving. I still grieve for them every day. I don’t need lectures on it, I don’t give lectures on it.
People who love dogs ought to have dogs. I admit I have little empathy for people who choose to grieve for dogs rather than have dogs. There are lots of them. I have lots of empathy for people who lose dogs. It hurts, it’s hard.
But either way they grieve, it’s their choice, and they have the right to it, but I have my choice. I won’t hide from it to be radically nice.
Everybody grieves in their own way, it is not for me to ever tell somebody else how to do it, not in my hospice or therapy work, not with dogs.
I will not be on Facebook years from now recalling the day Red died with great sadness. I won’t ever be doing that. I don’t like it when people tell me how sorry they are for me. I am not sorry for me, neither was Red.
My daughter was not slaughtered by a sick man with a machine gun. I feel sorry for that. My son was not bayoneted or starved to death in a refugee camp. I feel tons of empathy for that.
So here’s what I believe will happen. I want a dog, a puppy, I think, I like to train from 12 weeks. I think that’s the path to another great therapy dog, that and a grounded temperament. I think my best shot at this might be an ethical and experienced breeder, and I know many. But I’m just not sure yet. I am open to a new experience.
One day in the Fall or early winter I will probably put a photo up on this blog and introduce you good people to the new dog, I’m seeing a puppy in my head.
It could be a Lab puppy, it could be a rescue dog, it could be a dog that wanders in off the road. Either way, it will be a dog I want, not a dog somebody else tells me I should have.
Nobody who tells me there is only one way to have a dog is my friend, or is someone I would ever listen to. I am eager to get started on my next dog journey, and I thank you for coming along, and I hope you will be around for the next chapter.
I will do my best to be nice. Being human, I will sometimes fail. Now that is acceptance!
There is always the next chapter.
All the best to you, Mr. Katz. I appreciate your raw truth. You will find a dog soul just right for you. Or, the dog will find you.
Tricia, thanks, I see a yellow dog in my future, a Yellow Lab puppy who becomes a good therapy dog…Don’t know if that will come to pass, but that’s what I see..
or a yellow lab like Marley! 🙂 You just never know!
Such common sense! So many good dogs looking for a home…too many people waiting because they “JUST CANT DO IT AGAIN”. I’m with you. Dogs are the best and though we’ve lost our share over the years and cried for them. I cant imagine living life without a dog or two.
Me either Bobbie…good for you…
I’ve loved all your books and reading your blog. Would you ever think about writing a book about Red?
Thanks Vivian, at the moment, I don’t think so. My blog is my book, and I’m happy writing here. But thanks for asking.
Jon, I just don’t think you realize that you can come across as mean-spirited and judgmental— not all the time, but very often when people don’t think the way you think, or feel the way you feel. You can be kind and empathetic, but you can also be a dick. Don’t be a dick!
Donna, this is not exactly big news. I certainly do realize I can be mean-spirit and angry, people tell me often enough, and I know who I am. I’m quite human. A good writer can always see and admit the worst parts of him or her self.
All of my favorite fictional characters, from Sam Spade to Jose Arcadio Buendia have been dicks, and I don’t believe I can suddenly become another, all-nice person to please you. (no one else is asking at the moment). So no, I’m afraid the dick you see is the dick you see is the dick you will get. It wouldn’t work for me to be nice all the time.
If I’m a dick, I’m okay with it, and I wouldn’t deny it. But there are 30 million blogs out there, I’m sure some of them are written by nicer, dick-less people if that’s what matters to you. It might be a nice tombstone carving: “He was a dick, but he could be kind…” A mysterious figure of great contradictions – it works for me. My daughter would love that. So would I. (Or, in the movie, she could beg him in a smokey, Marilyn kind of voice, hopeless but trying: “Please don’t be a dick, Jon,” but then, after she was gone, she would tell a reporter. “He was a dick. But he could be kind and nice too…” Then cut to the tombstone..)
P.S. Someone pointed out to me the delicious irony of your telling me to be nicer while calling me a dick. The rationality of social media…:) (I’m sure you’re not aware of the irony…:))
hahahaha..that did make me laugh..
The funny thing about this is that you are assuming when, if and where you will get another dog. If it is going to happen, it will. More likely, it will just squirm into your lap.
Hmmm..not sure I’m that passive Joan. I usually decide what I want and go do it. But we’ll see. Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, I’m pretty sure what I want to do.
You should tell it like you see it. I may not always agree with you, but I don’t consider it my place to tell you that. What I do appreciate is your honesty in sharing some of your deepest feelings with well, basically, strangers. Keep writing, in your own very authentic voice. I can read pablum elsewhere.
Thanks Cathy, I appreciate you, and I appreciate that you are comfortable with disagreeing with me. In our country, people are learning to hate the people they disagree with, and I don’t. I learn much more from disagreement than agreement. I don’t see the point of reading anybody I always agree with, that’s the poison of the left and the right. Thanks for the post, and for being here.
It would never occur to me comment on how you or anyone else should take a good dog’s death. I know a minister in a very proper church. In the middle of a sermon, someone passed him a note that his dog had unexpectedly died. He starting weeping uncontrollably, tore off his robes, and ran out the door, leaving the congregation to figure out for itself communion bread and wine, wasn’t seen for a couple of weeks. Nobody said a thing. After a while, minister and wife posted a photo of themselves with a new dog, and life went joyfully on. How else should it be?
Thank you for writing, I enjoy reading what you write. I feel comfortable when I read what you have written, it makes my feel like I know you even though I really don’t. I started reading your books several years ago and met you at a book signing in Glens Falls.
I have loved and lost dogs over the years and still love and grieve each one. I grieve differently than my husband does over the loss of a dog, that is just how we are and we accept that.
Thank you for your honest writing. Your vulnerability and strength. You are inspiring.
Thank you. Perfectly said. The way I feel now too in my loss and need to just live it for ourselves with whatever dog comes our way.
Thanks Kathryn….whatever dog comes our way is a nice phrase..
Jon, I think getting another dog is a great idea. After my first dog died, I waited a whole year before I got another. We had another dog at home, and he needed a lot of love. When he died, I turned 65 a month or so later. I began to think seriously about my childhood dream, which was to have a purebred Collie. Buying from a breeder was out of my price range. I was a teacher. Then I discovered breed rescues. I found one in Maryland, I put in my application and after we passed what seemed to be an interrogation, we had a beautiful white Collie. We had her for nine long years. After she passed, I held my stuffed Collie for one week. It was not enough so I called up the rescue again. A week later, I got a call that they had a male smooth Collie that was almost 8. That seemed a good fit for us seniors. We have had Echo for a year now. He’s a character who keeps us smiling. He was hurt by people and attacked by 3 dogs in 2 different incidents. My husband and I are trying to train him, but progress is slow. So, I would say, go get another dog.
Thanks Ellen, that is advice I like…Good luck with your dog…
Please keep on writing the way you do!
I love the way you write about the dogs the people and everything else?
People nowadays seem to like telling us how to act how to feel and what is best for us….
Please stay who you are!!!!!
I always read your blogs and books
There will be a new dog on the block soon?
Thanks, Idette, for the nice words. I’m afraid it’s too late for me to be anyone but me, I appreciate the good words and the encouragement. I feel a new dog in the air…
Although it’s annoying that people want to tell you what to do, think, feel and write it sure keeps the blog lively. I enjoy reading your comebacks. I can’t wait to see and read about the new puppy/dog and the shenanigans that will follow! Who would have thought that Bud would actually move sheep! I mean honestly, stuff like that only happens here.
Thanks, Beth, it’s true, things just do happen here, I feel like a blessed witness, I think a farm is a safe place for them and us, and they feel free to be themselves. I hope that’s the case. Honestly, I can’t wait for a new puppy either, I can’t think of a better way to honor Red. I don’t mind sparring with these people, it feels like sacred work to me.
DONNA … go read another blog …. you don’t deserve to read this one, as honest thoughts and feelings ‘aren’t your thing’!
Thanks Kimberly, I should have thought of it myself, but someone pointed out the sweet irony of Donna pleading with me to be nicer while calling me a dick. Sort of says all you need to say about the rationality of social media.
I love your thoughts,and your writing. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t. But, I love that even more- sometimes disagreeing is the perfect point for an eye opener.
A friend’s mother once told me, after the death of one of my dogs- we don’t always get the dog we want- but we get the dog we need. I hope you do too.
Julie
Thanks Julie..
Thanks again, Jon, for giving me some smiles. I appreciate you and your many contributions that make our world a better place.
Jon, you’re honest and I, for one, really appreciate that. I agree with everything you wrote in this blog, but I don’t always. We are not identical and I appreciate that as well. Wouldn’t life be boring if we all thought and talked and felt the same? I’m not sure where the idea came from that so many people have that we should all be identical, but I don’t like it. Keep on being who you are. Your writing makes me think and thinking keeps me young (I’m your age).
I’ve had dozens of dogs in my life and would never dream of not having any because they don’t live forever. I can’t wait to see what dog comes to you next. It will be a testament to your love for all the other dogs you’ve had and trained and will bring joy to many of us who have followed you since the beginning. Keep up the good work!
Sweet post, Tracy, and wise, thank you very much.
Hey I don’t always agree with you either, but then people find me a pain too sometimes..I don’t mind and I can see you don’t mind either. We are who we are..makes life interesting and we have the right to be ourselves! When I was young I cared about what people thought, now I am old ( er), I don’t really give much of a crap..have ten dogs Jon, or just get one more, your life and Maria’s of course. Of note, I see an Oliver ( yellow) to your previous Stanley (from the book I so loved). Btw, not telling you what to do, just highly suggestive of what’s coming next, lol.
Hi Jon,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts , feeling, and farm life with us. I was sad to hear about Red, however I am glad that he had such a great life with you, Maria , the farm., therapy work and bringing comfort and joy to people. I am glad that you treated him with respect and dignity and saw when it was time,
Please continue to be YOU, honest truthful, caring . I have always been of the school that truth is best, sometimes we don’t like it, but are better for hearing it.
Grief, how dare anyone tell yow how you should feel, act, or speak, All though everyone experiences some type of loss in their live we all experience it differently. I can’t stand it when someone says ” I know how you feel” No they don’t. We don’t know how you feel we can empathize , but each persons experience is unique to them.
If someone doesn’t care for your writing, then why the heck are they reading your blog? I think some people look for people to disagree with.
Be well, be you, and take care. When it’s time you and your new dog will find each other!