If it feels like family, it’s family Eve Jeffery
My best friend died when I was 40. We’d been as thick as thieves for almost 17 years. She was with me through everything - relationship breakups and makeups, moving home and moving state. She was even in the room with me when I had my children, as I had been when she had hers. I cried like a baby for weeks after she died. I was bereft. And though everyone had a lot of sympathy for me, there were still those who said: ‘but it was only a dog’. We found each other when she was only five weeks old – too young to leave her mother but circumstances prevailed… We slept together that first night and she didn’t stop crying until exhaustion overcame fear and sadness. From then on we were inseparable. The connection between all sorts of earthlings can be just as strong as the connection between humans. Sometimes your fur family are the only ones you can talk to – the only ones with whom you can share the truth of who you are – your hopes, your dreams, your fears and your anxiety. And your secret loves. As seen during the same-sex marriage debate in 2017, some people have very static ideas about who they think family should and shouldn’t be, but the relationships we have with our pets, whether we choose them or they choose us, can be as binding as any other familial tie. A close friend of mine and her partner had been looking for a 20 FAMILY
FEBRUARY 2022
The Hall family – Ellena and Matt with Brodie, Bickie and Billie and bubba due in May. Photo Tree Faerie.
dog and they had spoken to a breeder. They excitedly awaited a puppy from the next litter. At around about the same time the woman fell pregnant with an already loved and muchyearned-for baby. Three days after they picked up their new pup, the woman miscarried – the couple were shattered – inconsolable. My friend took time off work to recover her body and her aching heart. She snuggled up in bed for a week with the new puppy and though the pooch didn’t take the place of the baby, he certainly helped soothe an unfillable empty space for his new mum and dad, and over the years the dog and his parents lavished love on each other – immeasurable. A few years later they found out that the dog had a terminal condition. Lucky I suppose, in a way, that he wasn’t taken suddenly in an accident, but the couple were devastated and took the steps any family would take to prepare for the death
of a dear family member. They arranged for him to be palliated at home and, when he died, for his remains to be taken care of, and they organised touching memorials. They went on a ‘farewell tour’ and visited loved ones and took lots of photos just as any family would. And they quietly and gently, all together, waited at home for the end; they held him in their arms as he slipped away. This was just as devastating for them as any other family loss, they grieved and were overwhelmed with sadness. They missed their little buddy so much. He was their family, their firstborn child, and yet, there are people who will say to them: ‘But he was only a dog’. Only he wasn’t. Some people choose fur family instead of a human family. Some choose both. For some, the choice is made for them. The connection of family has no boundaries and the ties are the same no matter whom you’ve chosen, or who chooses you. www.echo.net.au/family
