You might recall that late last winter I stumbled upon a most touching doggie grave in the woods.
(More photos at the link.)
Isabelle Boothe (of various spellings) had died only a few days earlier. It said so on the marker. And a whole family of children had written and drawn their goodbyes. The plastic-protected mementos fastened to the cross also included photos of the beloved dog returning from a victorious hunt and more. All in all, a great act of love by a family for their too-soon-dead pet.
I’ve visited the grave many times since then, saying my hellos to Isabelle.
Then …
Today I went grocery shopping. Just ahead of me as I walked in the door, I spotted a mother and two young children, each wearing an athletic jacket with the name “Boothe” on the back. I wondered …
I wasn’t going to say anything, but as we shopped, we kept turning up in the same aisles. So finally I approached the woman. “Excuse me. May I ask you an odd question? Did you have a dog named Isabelle?”
“Yes, we do,” she answered. Do. Not did.
“Well, I’ve seen her grave, with all the notes and …”
“Oh. We didn’t think she was going to make it through that night. So we dug the grave and made all those things. But she did.”
“She’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Oh good,” I said. “I’m glad. She was too young to die. I thought the memorial was very touching.”
But I must admit I was and remain a bit flummoxed that the grave I’ve been visiting all summer, the grave with all those heartbreaking mementos, that collar draped over it, and those very specific dates of birth and death … contains no actual dog. That the dog honored with all those farewells is running around, as healthy as you and me.
Flummoxed is a good word.
Can’t imagine why they left it there.
Hoomins is weird. 😉
So now I have Twilight Zone running through my head.
OTOH I can see Mom standing there thinking, Now what? Isabelle is recovering. If we don’t leave the stuff out there, what? Store it away for when we do need it? (Liable to be a bit stale.) Throw it away? Have a memorial service for the memorial stuff? Remove it behind the kids’ back?
Not much of a good option. Any suggestions?
And here I thought shopping in the big city was interesting…
I think Kent is right. People are weird – probably much more often than we might think. Some just hide it better.
The other possibility that occurred to me last night is that Isabelle actually is in that grave. Maybe when I asked her so unexpectedly about the dog, the woman feared she might be in trouble for burying a dog on somebody else’s private woodlands and lied about it.
‘Cause really (LarryA’s funny suggestions aside), somebody not only had to dig that grave and install all those elaborate mementos; they had to come back and cover the grave with earth later. If they were going to go to the effort of coming back to cover it — with no dog buried there — why wouldn’t they also take down the memorial at the same time?
Either way, definitely odd. Not the same as buying yourself a plot and headstone at the local cemetery with death date to be added later.
Very likely, Claire – but…
Additionally strange… I’ve buried a good number of dogs, always on my own property. Why would anyone do this on “public” property instead of their own, even if they only rent?
Guess we have to go back to weird…
People around here use the woods as a dumping ground for almost everything. While all the woodlands are private, they mostly belong to big timber companies and are so accessible that people treat them as public. So a dog grave out there wouldn’t be terribly unusual. Isabelle’s is the third I’ve seen over the years.
Can’t imagine burying a dog in the backyard of a rented house — especially if you wanted to bury it with an elaborate memorial.
People are weird.
I think it’s likely that the kids had such a hard time losing their dog, that the parents bought one that looked close and said it was the same dog.
Ellendra- Parents always think they can pull that deception off. It doesn’t work even with 3 year-olds and their goldfish or hamsters. In all my years working in pet shops I tried and tried to convince parents to just be honest, but they all thought the kids could be fooled. As far as I know not one of them got away with it. I think a dog (with an actual personality and everything) would be even harder to “replace”.
(“Sure It’s Isabelle. She’s just suffering demonic possession and acts a little different right now. You’ll get used to it.”
Strange as it may well be, with everything going on around this big ball we live on it’s nice to read a story with a happy ending for a change.