The God Squad: Reprise; The death of my dog Miles

Q: Dear Rabbi Gellman, I’m writing because I know you’ve lost your beloved dog in the past and I recently put my dog down and once again am heartbroken. You wrote a column about losing your dog that I wanted to keep, however, the newspaper went out in the recycle pile before I grabbed it. Is there any way I could get a copy? I loved it so much and found it so comforting, even at that time, now I could really use it to mend this pain. Thanks so much for all you do. -- (From C)

A: God comfort you, dear C. I hope it brings comfort to all who have been blessed to feel the unconditional love of an animal. Some theologians teach that dogs have no soul and so they cannot enter Heaven. If that is true, and I do not believe it is true, then I do not want to go to Heaven. I want to go to the place where Miles is curled up near my feet under my desk. -- MG

A letter to Dr. Alan Coren, chief veterinarian of West Hills Animal Hospital, Huntington, N.Y., who is my friend and who was the veterinarian for my dog Miles who died:

Dear Alan,

I could not write to you until now to thank you properly and personally for your compassion and care for Miles through his life and up to his last moments, when Miles died on the blanket you had spread out for us in exam room No. 2. Miles' debilitating renal failure was a death sentence, and thankfully his suffering is now over. As Miles turned cold in my arms and entered a breathless eternal sleep, I was utterly unprepared for the flood of tears and grief I felt at his death.

I bury people, and I know that grief at the death of a pet is not the same as grief at the death of a person, but it is still grief. It is still deep and raw and it is shattering to our admittedly irrational expectations that we will never be separated from those we love.

I tell people I counsel through their human grief to try to give thanks for the pain they feel, because the pain is a measure of their love. Buddhists teach that the first Noble Truth is that suffering (dukkah) arises from our attachments to the beings of the world. Unlike Buddhists, I do not seek the removal of attachment (tanhakaya). I was happy to be attached to Miles and I am happy now to be a mess of tears because of that attachment. In a way I actually savor this grief as the way that the gift of unconditional love is painfully but properly repaid.

I also understand the bewilderment and impatience of those who have never loved an animal. Many of them openly or privately harbor condescending thoughts about pet lovers who often seem to them so willing to lavish love and attention on animals that they cannot seem to summon up for the souls of other human beings. My message to them is, “Talk to me after a dog licks your face.”

I have attended many rallies against many genocides and although they were all heartbreaking, in many of them I could not cry the way I cried for Miles. A part of me is ashamed of my hardened heart. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote,

“What seems to us more important, more painful, and more unendurable is really not what is more important, more painful and more unendurable, but merely that which is closer to home. Everything distant which for all its moans and muffled cries, its ruined lives and millions of victims, that does not threaten to come rolling up to our threshold today, we consider endurable and of tolerable dimensions.”

Miles rolled up to the threshold of my heart and I cannot and will not feel embarrassed at feeling selectively bereft. I know that they are not on the same moral level, but I remain convinced that the ability to cry for a dog tutors our ability to cry for a person.

Alan, I know that you help families move through the grief of the death of a pet as often as I help families move through the grief of the death of a person. I know they need my steady soul to make it through the valley of the shadow. I just wanted you to know how much I needed you and how much I love you and thank you. You were a rabbi to a rabbi, and you were the steady soul of caring for a very good dog whom I loved more than I ever understood until this sad but healing moment.

God bless you, Marc.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)