Like a Tent

I remember after my dad died on a Sunday morning crossing the sidewalk in front of the hospital, and people were laughing and talking, coming back from their lunch breaks. Everything had a sense of unreality. Like I was underwater and behind glass looking at the other humans. Today, when I walked out of the animal hospital after watching the quiet and unremarkable and yet remarkable death of the pet of a friend, I had a similar feeling. W.H. Auden was right. "About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters: how well they understood its human position; how it takes place while someone else is eating or just opening a window [...] While the four of us there took turns holding a tiny oxygen mask up to the pug's gray muzzle, cars were passing on the busy street outside probably filled with Christmas shoppers. While the vet made the two quick injections, one to numb and one to stop the heart, we could hear doors opening and closing in the clinic, the receptionist answer the phone. For some things, the only word is "sacred." This little being was one of my relations. I ran on beaches with her, down streets. I held her on my chest in the shade once and sang to her for an hour when I had locked both of us out of her mother's house. She was my companion for days in the seven months I lived with Deborah after my parents were killed. Everyone in the room had a relationship with her. And when she died, we threw our arms around each other and over her body like a tent.