Good Grief: A Note from the Editorial Director |
On Sunday, February 23, my dog died. Her name was Jupiter. She was fourteen years old, a Maltese-pooodle mix. The runt of the litter. Out of all her brothers and sisters, we decided to not sell her. We kept her because of her distinctive black and white coloring, almost like that of Holstein cattle. She was a quiet, unassuming dog, being the runt and all. When she was a puppy, she was timid and cowering. But very soon after losing her mother to an owl at just eighteen months old, Jupiter grew into a dog with a noble bearing. Nothing fazed her.
Even after she had lost all but four of her teeth and could no longer stop her tongue hanging from her mouth and drying out like a slug on a hot sidewalk, even after silence slowly gathered in her ears as she grew into an old dog, she would listen for the vibrations of our heavy footsteps across the hardwood floors, smell the trails of our scents and follow us around the house. After sensing that we'd stopped and stayed still, she would catch up with us, sit before us, and look up at the general shape of us through the cataracts clouding her eyes, and quietly ask us to pet her. I was raised in the country by a father who grew up on a farm. Country folk don't tend to become sentimental about animals. I recall my mother, who was raised in the city, weeping and wailing when our poodle ran across the road and was hit by a car and killed. The death seemed to barely register with my dad. Easy come, easy go, I imagined him saying because that was one of the many things he often said. I tend to take after him. My wife and I once took our six-month-old German shepherd, Bacoomba, to a city vet who told us the limping she was experiencing was caused by a condition called hip dysplasia. He could fix her goas as new to the tune of $800 a hip. My wife and I were newly married, working five jobs between us, and living paycheck to paycheck. Yet, even if we did have the money, there was no way I was spending that much on a dog. I loved that shepherd, but still, she was a dog. This is all to say that I was as surprised as anyone when I noticed myself weeping as Jupiter was struggling for breath during her final moments. I was shocked to recognize Cheyene-Stokes breathing, the abnormal patterned breath of the dying. I thought this was a human thing. The deadened, glazed-over look in her eye didn't help either. Both reminded me of my mother in her final hours. When aI looked over and saw my wife weeping as well, I remembered that this, to the day, was my dead father-in-law's birthday.The anniversary of my mother's death would be later that week. I realized that the reason the death of this particular dog hit me so hard had to do with more than just the dog. Since 2018, all three of our children have come of age and all four of our parents have passed on. We have both lost close friends to cancer and the pandemic. An older work buddy of mine once told me that the 50s were brutal, and, man, he wasn't kidding. May people of all ages are dealing with grief these days. In these pages, Sheila Fiona Black's poetry and Cassandra Powers' story "Day Four of ta National Heat Wave," explore themes of death and rebirth, recovery, the monotony of feeling caught in a loop, and environmental destruction.Other authors touch on similar topics. The weight of the past, struggles with nature, technology taking away the adventure of living, the mythical call for violence. Other pieces deal with depression, illness, and loss. Still others examine being brue to one's own sense of self, to poverty and to fragmented history, as well as dealing with the absurdity and injustice of living in the world today. Indeed, much of our grief, anxiety, and even depression seems to be driven by the word's current political situation. Our authors have something to say about that: the rich getting richer, the dire situations of immigrants, civic duty in trying times, as well as magical reality and the ineptness of our political leaders. Here, you will read about the horrors of war, the cruel and willful destruction of peoples, the recent assault on trans righs, and the relentless attempts at erasing racial and ethnic identities and histores. Yet, all of our writers, although raising dark themes, will leave you with a sense of hope and inspiration. Chase D. Fowler speaks to the interconnectedness of the universe through the theme of star-crossed love. E.A. Greymoire reminds us of the merits and morality of being there for an animal in need. Sandra Cimadori writes of loss while reminding us of the potential for deep connected ness across generations. Donald Levering suggests that government can actually be inventive and positive in the lives of its citizens. Jim Daniels' The Art of Losing suggests that grieving is an art, a skill acquired by experience, study, and observation. Like any skill, we can get better at it with practice. Preparing for Jupiter's burial, I hauled my pickaxe and shovel from the pole barn and spent an hour hacking away at the four inches of hoarfrost in a patch of ground in the backyard. My family and I wrapped Jupiter in the shroud of an old pillowcase and carried her out to her grave. The temperature was in the frigid teens, but the sun was shining and warm on my face. As we lowered the old girl down and placed her in, my wife played Drops of Jupiter and Ain't No Sunshine on her phone. We each took turns tossing in shovelfuls of dirt. Even though we still felt the loss, we did feel better. When my father became dismayed by something in his personal life of the general state of the world, he would say, "Good grief!" This may have been his way of swearing euphemistically in ta manner that did not take the Lord's name in vain around my traditionally Catholic mother. Living through frustrating times myself, I now interpret the phrase a little differently. Holding a funeral for a beloved pet in the middle of a cold mid=Michigan winter is practicing good grief. that is good because doing so helped my family cope with our losses together. Clockhouse, I believe, is another way of practicing good grief. This year's cover photo, taken by my big brother Dave, has the word sunset in the title because that's when it was taken. However , as I mentioned to him over dinner one evening in December, his gorgeous photograph could also be seen as a sunrise. After all, grief isn't a destination but a passage to the dawn. Ken Damerow, Editorial Director |