“I’ll take [caressing death] over pushing paper any day.”
A few summers back I worked on a veterinarian’s farm. There, I helped the vet euthanize a 13-year-old goat. The animal, a family pet, had become long-forgotten by the children who once loved the novelty of its domestication. Arthritis disabled the goat’s joints, and without them it had to use its knees to drag itself along. They were bloodied and worn to the bone.
The veterinarian pushed the plunger and thus forced poison from the syringe into the animal’s veins. It immediately became heavy with death and the vet began to cry. He had recently lost his mother and this situation was bringing him back to that mental place, stained by loss. Rain soon started to come down hard, the vet excused himself and I was left alone to shovel the goat’s grave.
When I took a break for lunch, I found a copy of Verdi’s Requium near to the stove and found myself inspired to bring a portable stereo outside with me upon my return. I listened to the piece repeatedly until the goat was finally embedded into the soaking earth.
Against my own life, the juxtaposition of the death-saturation of that particular day made me inflective and excited. I think back on it and smile.
Sometimes I’ll see someone I haven’t seen for a long time and they ask me what’s going on. The conversation willl enevitably turn to Dad. They’ll do the whole, “Oh my - I’m so very sorry to hear that” thing. I understand where they’re coming from, but they don’t have to be sorry. They’re working at some office, or investing some other person’s cash, or whatever it is they do and I have an opportunity to spend some time getting a bit of death under my fingernails. Sure it’s emotionally straining, but I’ll take it over pushing paper any day.
