Mindy Quigley

Tag: dealing with a pet’s death

  • I Framed This Turd For You

    My dog died yesterday. There is no silver lining to this. She was my beloved. My sweetest, goodest, irreplaceable baby girl. And now she’s gone.

    Peggy was eleven, which isn’t tragically young. Her death, after months of worsening health, was as good as a death can be–peaceful, painless, at home, surrounded by her family.

    But she’s dead.

    In my day job in the clinical trials office at Virginia Tech’s vet school, I have a lot of end of life conversations. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been telling myself all the things I tell other pet owners. “You’re doing the right thing.” “We are blessed to be able to offer pets a way to end their lives with dignity and compassion.” “Your pet is lucky to have an owner who puts their comfort and happiness above all else.” I say these things to others because I know that words matter. The right words shape our darkest, heaviest pain. They scaffold feelings and fears. Sometimes they give us ways of thinking that help us to snatch a scrap of meaning from the pile of tornado-spun ruins that used to be our hearts.

    I was talking to a colleague recently about why I write. I sometimes joke with other writers that I do it for the money, and then we laugh until we cry. There are maybe a dozen people alive who’ve gotten rich by stringing words together, and we are not them. I’d get better ROI from selling my blood plasma. So why do I do it? And why, in particular, do I churn out formulaic comfort reads about, of all things, murder?

    As I clung to my little heart scraps in the wake of the emotional calamity of my dog’s death, my reasons came into focus. Part of why I write is because meaning-making is what I feel compelled to do as a human. Everything alive will die, but only humans, and maybe some really emo chimpanzees, actually seem to be aware of this fact. Death fills us with awe and dread. I can’t even begin to fathom it. It is obvious, basic, and mundane, but it’s also too large and bewildering for my puny brain to hold. Death is the ur-Bogeyman, the OG unknowable unknown.

    When I write a murder mystery, I can put guardrails on death. I can ensure that the mystery of (the fictional) death is solved and that wrongdoing is dragged into the daylight and wrongdoers are brought to justice. Isn’t that what humans have always used stories for? We take something that makes no sense and build a framework of explanation for it. Word by word, we give it shape. We constrain its scope. We nail it to the wall to be studied. It doesn’t make the bad thing any less bad. A turd in a frame is still a turd. But maybe we can take that turd, put it in a better frame, on a bigger wall where it really catches the light.

    I wrote an obituary for my dog the day before she died, knowing that there’d be zero chance I’d have the wherewithal to do it afterward. I wrote it because I knew that telling the story of who she was and what she meant to our family would be important.

    Words are not resurrection spells. I wish they were. But in the face of the world’s unfathomable mysteries, in the aching absence of warm, furry cuddles, words give us something to hold.

    Peggy Lymm Quigley returned to the light on October 16, 2023, dying peacefully at home, surrounded by her family. 🌈

    Peggy was born on February 10, 2012 in the quaint English village of Lymm. The family she was born into had named all the other puppies in the litter, but her, they simply called Quiet No Name. She had a sweet and passive disposition, preferring to let her littermates take center stage. When the Quigley Family was given pick of the litter, they knew that this sensitive soul would be the perfect fit for them.

    Peggy lived the first year and a half of her life in Edinburgh, Scotland, exploring the city and hanging out in dog-friendly pubs. She especially loved jaunts up Blackford Hill with her father and human sister. From up there, Peggy’s beard could blow majestically in the breeze as she took in views of Edinburgh Castle, Arthur’s Seat, and the Firth of Forth.

    Peggy took it in her stride when the family relocated to America in August 2013, making the transatlantic crossing in her usual no-fuss style. She developed a reputation as a sweet and friendly neighborhood fixture, who went on occasional sprees to visit her friends. At Virginia Tech, Peggy trained as a therapy dog, doling out cuddles to stressed students during exam weeks.

    When her little brother was born, Peggy again rolled with the changing family circumstances, gently tolerating his clumsy pets and wild games. “Giggy” was one of his first words, and he christened his most beloved stuffed toy “Giggy” in her honor.

    Peggy enjoyed walks in the cool weather, pouncing on the snow, chasing waves, and lying quietly in the sun. Most of all, she loved cuddles. Peggy poured her boundless love on everyone who crossed her path, and was loved in return, especially by her extended family. Her mother Mindy was her closest companion. During the Covid lockdowns and every day since, Peggy could be found quietly snoozing under Mindy’s desk chair.

    Peggy, we wish you could’ve stayed with us longer. You gave everything and demanded nothing. You loved bountifully and unconditionally, and were loved in return. Your heart was the purest gold. ❤️ 💔 💙 ❤️ 💔 💔 💙 ❤️ 💔 💙 ❤️ 💔

  • You will never find closure

    The vet school where I work when I’m not writing the Mount Moriah Mysteries runs a Pet Loss Hotline, and I sometimes volunteer there. Many of the callers use the hotline to support them through the acute, initial phases of grief. The sympathetic ear we provide can be particularly helpful if the pet’s death has been traumatic or sudden, or if the owner’s friends, coworkers, and family are the kind of people who think they’re being helpful when they offer suggestions like, “Let’s go to the Humane Society this weekend and pick out another cat for you.”**

    **Note to those inclined to give such advice — For many people, their pets mean as much to them as your human relatives mean to you. So unless you’d feel comforted by someone saying, “Let’s run down to the assisted living facility this weekend and pick you out a new grandma,” maybe keep that particular bit of advice to yourself.

    Grandma shopping aside, there’s an aspect of these calls that reminded me of some of the struggles the protagonist of my Mount Moriah mysteries, Lindsay Harding, has faced. Many of the callers are haunted–often for months or even years after their pet’s passing–by unanswered questions. “Did I euthanize Fluffy too soon? Would the cancer really have killed her, or should I have tried another round of chemo?” “What did Max actually die of? Was it really unavoidable, or did my vet just make a mistake and cover it up?” A variation on these calls comes when the pet has simply gone missing. “Where is Bailey? Is he happily living with a new family, or was he hit by a car and killed?” In all these cases, the callers’ brains drive them around the same rutted track, night after night.

    My books, too, contain some unresolved mysteries. I don’t want to be accused of dropping spoilers of my own work, so suffice it to say that book two, A Death in Duck, ends with the fate of a major character unresolved. In book three, The Burnt Island Burial Ground, there is still no resolution, and the tension that comes with not knowing impacts many of Lindsay’s actions in that book. I have the luxury of being able to decide if, when, and how the mystery of that character’s fate will be resolved, but my poor protagonist still doesn’t know. One thing I’ve been at pains to have her avoid, though, is seeking closure.

    As a hospital chaplain, Lindsay will have heard many variations on the themes of the Pet Loss Hotline’s callers. And I’m sure that she, like me, will have quickly picked up on the idea that it would be counterproductive to offer answers to the person’s questions. Saying something like, “I’m sure Bailey is fine. He was a smart dog, and I bet he’s living a really happy life on a farm,” may fool a five-year-old, but it’s certainly not going to help someone struggling with profound grief. (And if any of you have ever been told the “Bailey went to live on a farm” story as kids, you know how well that worked out!)

    So how, then can we find closure when we are confronted by unanswerable questions? Well, we can’t. And I think it’s silly to try.

    That may sound harsh, but one thing that has seemed to help callers to the hotline is for me to suggest that humans are hardwired to try to fill in gaps. We are creatures of meaning. We may complain that it’s unrealistic when our favorite TV series ends with a series of perfect weddings and happily-ever-afters, but we roar in agony when they end in cliffhangers, Ă  la The Sopranos. Unanswered questions sit on our brains like itchy scabs, refusing to heal, demanding our attention.

    So if we accept that such rumination is normal, what are we to do about it? My belief, which I’ve planted in Lindsay’s head, is to focus on living. Little by little, allow yourself to smile, breathe, and love again. Congratulate yourself when you do. When the unanswered questions start to poke their little fingers into our thoughts, remind yourself that they will always be there, but that you don’t have to let them drag you back to that same mental rut right now. You can choose instead to use those thoughts as reminders to take an action that would honor your loved one or pet. Bailey loved walks? Well, when you start to think about his disappearance, might it honor him if you took a walk and remembered the good times you had? Thinking about Fluffy’s tumor? What is something that might channel that question into something life-affirming? Perhaps putting a dollar in a jar each time you think about her diagnosis, and then donating that money to an animal charity?

    As for Lindsay, she struggles to put this into practice, but I’m confident that she’ll keep trying. Sometimes it’s good to know that you’re in control of someone else’s happy endings, because in real life, closure is elusive.