Last Minutes With Oden (Warning: wrenching tears)

Let me sum up:
Beautiful documentary about parting with a much loved friend.





Let me splain:
This is a little off the geeky path, but I will gladly defend my status as an animal geek. I think I've mentioned the dog paw mark that would pop up on my forehead when I cried as a kid (it has resurfaced recently...you can catch it in some of my photos). At any rate, this mark was often deemed appropriate for a girl who favored St. Francis and who maintained her Ranger Rick subscription until the age of 15.

However, I also came from an allergy heavy gene pool. We never had proper mammals growing up. A couple family pets--a hamster named Marble, a tarantula named Noel. My sister got an adorable lop that ended up being more akin to the Monty Python bunny. And I sated myself with a snake named Blossom and three chameleons (named--possibly to overcompensate for "Blossom"--Byron Caliban Mission De Bergerac, Vladimir Adrian Chernabog Dodgson III, and Dolores Augusta Persephone Liddell).

I have, however, developed a big old pile of love for my husband's family dog, Shelby. A few years into my relationship with my husband, I mistakenly thought I'd achieved Family Member Status when Shelby stopped jumping on me when I entered my in-laws' home and barking at me when I hugged my husband. I quickly realized, however, that Shelby's aging muscles and eyes were the true culprits.

Shelby is hanging in there but I've recently begun to realize that soon I will be faced, for the very first time, with the loss of a dog I call family. The video above captures the struggle to release the pure, unconditional love that a pet brings. The eyes of a dog have a sort of wonderful warmth and acceptance. The same feeling we get when we bask in the face of a tiny hu-man...before language comes along and mucks things up. Letting go of this kind of love necessitates overcoming a basic human selfishness. Just like reconciling ourselves to the death of any loved one who has been in immense pain. Physical or otherwise. Trading our pain for their liberation. Letting go as an act of love.

~Geek out