Mortality, Morality, and Meaning

It’s a cold February morning, and my little dog, Gidget McFidget, is snoring in her dog bed behind my chair while the fireplace blazes. According to the DNA test, she is sixteen years old. That sounds right. She was a young dog when we got her from the shelter in 2012, thirteen years ago. The vet estimated her to be two years old at the time.

Sixteen in dog years is not as straightforward as 7x16=112, especially for a small breed dog. She’s probably closer to a ninety-year-old woman. That’s still pretty old. She is showing her age.

Most of her days are spent sleeping in her dog bed or on the couch next to me with brief interruptions to eat and potty. Food is still a priority for her, and she gobbles up her breakfast and dinner, but it’s the snacks that reign supreme for her. Every week, I bake up a batch of chicken gizzards for her and Bruce, and they get a couple gizzards twice a day. Gidget nearly eats my fingers when I give her those delicacies.

Her best time of day is mealtime. She gets excited for her bowl of chikkie slop and dances and plays with her toys like the puppy she once was. Really, the puppy she still is, underneath the white fur on her face. She has the same sassy, slightly insane, look in her eyes that she has maintained throughout the past sixteen years.

Still, I can’t deny her aging. The runway strip of potty pads leading to the back door gives testimony to her weakening bladder. She tries to make it outside, but if I’m not quick enough or don’t notice her by the door, those pads are a lifesaver. Her vision is fading, as is her hearing, but she can still see a dog getting walked past the house and barks like she is ready to charge into battle alongside Bruce.

When I see her relaxing on the couch, a faraway look in her eyes, I wonder if she is aware of her own mortality. Does she recognize her physical changes as signs that she is reaching the end of her years? She watched her companion Annabelle, my beagle, decline and pass away three years ago. Does she understand that the same thing will happen to her?

Maybe we humans are the only ones dumb enough to piss away the time we have left by thinking about it.

Human philosophers have long asserted that humans are the only animals aware of our own mortality. Only we waste our living days pondering our end. Many of the activities we pursue are efforts to distract us from our inevitable end. I know this is true for me.

Once we have secured food and shelter adequate to preserve our physical being, what distractions do we pursue? We have noble options in which we might seek to uplift others by whatever means we have – talents, skills, financial contributions. There is service work with charities, fundraising efforts like running a 5k, spending time with someone who needs our presence in their life.

Many people turn to the distraction of vices – drugs, drinking, gambling, the variety seems endless. For some people, only mind-altering substances or obsessions can deaden the existential dread that waits around every corner.

Some of us create new things – writing, art, music. These small acts of creation are the closest to the divine we can get.

To create something that did not exist before is to engage in a spiritual experience.

For me, as someone who has teetered on the cusp of mortality more times than I care to remember, I am acutely aware of how quickly the flame flickers, guttering into wax as the candle grows shorter. Creation is my connection to the divine, spreading the light from a single flame to light the way of those around me. To this end, I share these posts with you and publish my poems and write my stories to share with the world.

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

If my flame lights your candle, where will you go with it? Today is a new day. Share the light with another. In a world that seems to grow darker by the day, be the light. Be kind. Raise your voice to uplift others. Push for the collective good in this world.

I think the meaning of life is to leave things better than they were before you arrived.

If you’d like to support my work, you can do so by:

Hearting’ this post and others.

Leaving a comment (I respond to each comment).

Sharing this post by email, Notes, or on social media.

Recommending my page on your page.

Thank you for being one of my readers, I appreciate every one of you very much!