Patti Aro - Stardust and Old Dogs

 

So, my dog and I have a ritual. Well, it's kind of a ritual. I have a ritual. I go to the pet store about once a month, and I buy the biggest bag I can carry of organic lamb and rice, senior formula dog food with glucosamine and chondroitin. [audience laughter] I bring this thing home and I say to her, “You have to stay alive until this is all gone. [audience laughter] And I'm serious about this.” 

 

This dog was 15 years old in April, and I need her to live a long time. I need her to live, because I do not want to have the talk with my children. You know, the talk. My daughter is six, my son is four and I have been thinking for six years about this talk. [audience laughter] You see, I too am an atheist. So, I am bereft of that beautiful narrative that we're all familiar with of what happens after you die. So, I don't know what to say at all. [audience chuckle] Which is why, when one night we were putting the kids to bed, we heard this sound in the living room. [imitates gagging] [audience laughter] We raced out there and said, “Chicken bone! Chicken bone! Chicken bone!” We left the dinner on the table. 

 

So, I raced the dog to the animal emergency hospital in the middle of the night, where they were able to sedate her and get the chicken bone out with forceps. It only cost $300. [audience laughter] I got off lucky. You see, the second time Sophie got a chicken bone, they had to call in the scope driver, who had to come in, wake up from his bed and come to the veterinary hospital and drive a little mechanical hand down her esophagus and retrieve the chicken bone. So, that night I said to her, “You better live until this credit card is paid for.” [audience laughter] 

 

When the cat died, I did not tell my children for three weeks. [audience laughter] It happened the night before Valentine's Day. What are you going to do? Like, “Here's your heart-shaped pancake. By the way, Charlie's dead.” [audience laughter] And then, once you start faking the cat being alive, [audience chuckle] it's really hard to get out of it. It was easy. Charlie is Grandma's cat. Grandma and Charlie live downstairs. He really didn't like the children anyway, so they were used to going for long periods of time without seeing him.

 

And then, one day, you know, we're at breakfast and the nanny says, “Oh, by the--” and I said, “Shh, shh, shh.” She's like, [whispers] “You haven't told them yet. [audience chuckle] I haven't told them yet.” So, that night, I vowed I'm going to tell the children about the cat. I psyched myself up, and I told all my friends at work, “This is it. We're telling them about the cat.” So, that night, they came home from school, and I said, “Scarlett, honey, I have sad news. Honey, Charlie died in the night.” And she said, “Mommy.” And I said, “I know, honey.” And she said, “Can we get a kitten?” [audience laughter] And her brother said, “I want a black kitten.” And Scarlett said, “I want a white kitten. Let's get two.” And the conversation then the sad news was, we're not getting a black kitten or a white kitten. Disaster averted. 

 

But it wasn't long before I was faced with this question again. Last month, we traveled to Oregon to attend the funeral of my beloved uncle. At the family dinner where everyone was gathered, my cousin, whose father had just died, said to Scarlett, “It's okay, honey. Uncle David's up in heaven having his second life. He's up there with his dad and his mom, and everyone else who's already dead and we're all going to see him up there.” I froze like a deer in the headlights. Thank goodness. My son, meanwhile, had gone out into the driveway and had gotten in somebody else's car and was honking the horn, and I just ran. “Oops, got to get the boy.”

 

For the next few weeks, my daughter was telling me about the second life up in heaven, and I was like [stammers] I don't know what to say. I've been trying all this time to construct a narrative, something that's beautiful and magical and compelling, like that narrative. So far, all I have is, “We are made of stardust.” [audience laughter] Any suggestions would be really welcome here to finish that up. So, I continue to work on my narrative. And in the meantime, I keep buying that dog food, [audience laughter] because she's going to live a little bit longer. Thank you.