June 10, 2025
— Milan Kundera
Today is World Pet Memorial Day. The following is an excerpt from an article by Andrew Sullivan that was first published in The Spectator’s UK magazine:
The past few months have been my first in many decades without a dog. I used to have two, so that when one died, there was another to console me. But then I got too attached to my last beagle, Bowie, a rescue who had only three legs but a soul that loved me for eleven years, until she died in my arms of a heart attack last August. Life has been emptier since: I walk less; there is silence when I come home; I sleep in more. The calm she gave me, the sense of perspective: these, I realize, I need. Without that company, life isn’t just more hollow and flat; my soul is.
The phrase “dog people” always irritated me, not least because it was invariably attached to misanthropy. But I’ve come to realize that being a dog person can also be seen simply as a human whose life has become ineluctably wrapped up in a force of nature, even if that force is merely a plucky little crippled hound. And so I wait for spring and another visit to the local shelter to find another stray. And the life that is really the fusion of two lives will begin afresh.
©Andrew Sullivan
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