Novel Thoughts: What Work Brought You to Tears? - Part 1

Welcome back to Novel Thoughts. This month, Blackwarren’s staff will post a weekly piece exploring the works of media—whether book, poem, song, film, or television—that elicited tears, whether joyful, somber, or elsewhere on the emotional spectrum.

We begin with Managing Editor Vaughn Demont, and his tribute to his late mother, and her reaction to a film that any dog owner can quickly relate…

Vaughn-

What creative works make us cry? Are they tears of relief? Sadness? Shock? Happiness? The list of potentials is too exhaustive to sum up quickly, but that connection to emotion, that pang of feeling, is what makes us human and reminds us of our need for connection, sympathy, and empathy. We connect through our shared experience, emotions, and reactions.

Tragedy or comedy, art is how we convey those emotions and experiences to the world, and that art thrives because it connects to something everyone can. Unfortunately, there is one life experience that too many people can sympathize with: the death of a pet.

For many people, the death of a pet is someone’s first experience with death, that sudden realization that a loved one is gone, and isn’t coming back, and nothing will change that. It takes a lot to make me cry, personally, and I’m not proud of that.

I wasn’t diagnosed as being on the Spectrum until I was in my early 40s, but it made a lot of things make sense, looking back on my life. Having to learn social cues and appropriate reactions took up a chunk of my life, and I’m still learning. Crying was an action that I did freely when I was young, and then cut off completely when I was a teenager.

I’ve learned my triggers, and I know what to read or listen to or watch when I want to get the water-works going whether through anger (Poussey’s death in Orange is the New Black) or sadness (Lindsey’s drowning in The Abyss), and it’s usually something happy (“Leslie & Ben” from Parks & Rec) or hopeful (the end of Carole & Tuesday), but I know how to steer myself out of the spiral.

But that’s not what this entry is about, this is about what works break through and reach you and leave you a mess. This is a story about my witnessing someone completely shattered by a movie, my Mom. First of all, my Mom loved dogs, she’s always had them, from Brandy and Samantha and Micheline (Irish setters), to Lady (purebred Golden Retriever), to Rambo (Yellow Lab/Golden mix), to Mr. Favor (Yellow Lab/German Shepherd), to Rowdy (toy poodle), to Cammy (Yellow Lab mix), she’s always had a dog, and one of them is always a Yellow Lab or Golden.

You might be starting to guess what the movie was.

My Mom went out one night to go see a movie, which was almost unheard of, since she preferred to stay home and watch DVDs or whatever TV was on, but she saw the posters for a certain film with a yellow labrador front and center that looked almost exactly like her current dog at the time, Rambo, who she’d had since he was a puppy. Mr. Favor was loved dearly and broke the “no dogs on the bed” rule with impunity.

She went to go see Marley and Me, and when she came home, she was silent, and called Mr. Favor to her bedroom, and cried for the next three days, rarely letting him out of her sight. I’d suggested she go see the movie because of the poster. I didn’t know what it was about or how it ended, only that it was discussed in one of my writing classes. Needless to say, when my mom came home that night, I figured out how the story ended.

I wish I could say I cried too, but as I said, I wasn’t diagnosed yet, and all I knew was that I shouldn’t press the issue, and do whatever she asked me to do, lessen the stresses while she worked things out on her own, that Rambo was fine, and if anything was enjoying all the love and attention he was suddenly getting. But seeing that movie brought up every dog from her life that she had to tearfully say goodbye to, when she had to ask the vet the question that would give the answer to the next: Are they suffering?

She would have to ask that question about Mr. Favor several years later. It’s that question that prepares you for a difficult decision, to know your pet is in pain, and wanting to end their suffering, despite knowing you’ll be knocked back to the moment in childhood when you first learned what death was, and what it meant. And still, hold them and let them know how much they are loved as their end draws near.

When my mom elected to forgo testing and treatments for her impending kidney failure that would lead to her death, Cammy and Rowdy were still there, on her bed, staying close when she would be asleep for 18-20 hours a day.  When she checked into the hospital for the last time for comfort care, they were still at home, wondering where she went, and when she’d come home.

It’s been a few months, now. Rowdy finally succumbed to health issues, and someone else had to ask the vet the question, and stay with him after the answer was given. Cammy is fine, but still hopeful that whenever someone pulls into the driveway that it just might be Mom.

When my sister and I listened to the doctor about the care our mother was receiving at the end, the question was answered for us: Is she suffering? And she had already made the decision, and mostly my sister, but sometimes myself would be there with her, letting her know how much she was loved, how grateful we were to her for being our mother, that we were going to be okay, that my sister and I were talking again after being estranged for many years, that what we wanted was for her to find peace.

And books, movies, music, television shows, they can prepare you to face life when it takes those turns, know the proper cues and reactions and words so you can find your way to those emotions that need to be felt, to learn the importance of mourning and grieving, so you can put yourself in the same emotional place as the characters, so you can sympathize and empathize with those who are experiencing it for real. It’s part of how we connect to each other.

It's what makes us human.

Join us next week for the next entry of Novel Thoughts!