Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 10/25/23

Death and Taxes Edition

In Memorium: Sonya Louise Day-Finn

It's with a heavy heart that we must report the passing of one of our most important staff members. Sonya Louise (2010 - 2023) was the bunker mascot from when she was a three-month-old pup. She loved people and kids and loved getting attention from whoever would swing by her station to say hello.

She was well trained and had a variety of tricks she liked to perform for folks, especially when visitors presented themselves for inspection. She could catch food in mid-air like Roberto Clemente reaching for the top of the Right Field Wall. She could sit, lay down, stay, find things by name, back up, give kisses, and everyone's favorite, sing the blues, her little warble-whine she used to ask for food that she wasn't supposed to have. We often sang with her before rewarding her with a treat.

Her only mortal enemies were the squirrels across the street and she wasted countless hours plotting their demise.

She was a good girl. The best. And I know she will be much missed by our regulars as well as friends and family.

On the Day of my 54th Year

I’d like to apologize to my friends, many of whom wished me a jovial birthday and then three hours later wrote to me how sorry they were for my loss. It was emotional whiplash for all of us, and I know you felt it, too. After the age of 30, the only birthdays that matter are the decade milestones. Everything in the middle is just another day. You don’t get anything that’s fun or interesting. If anyone buys you anything, it’s a practical gift like shoes or a new office chair. That G.I. Joe with the Kung-Fu grip is never coming back, unless you buy one for yourself.

I mean, I paid taxes yesterday. Taxes! On my birthday! If that doesn’t sum up what being 54 is in a nutshell, than I don’t know what does.

The Language of Grieving

While I do not consider myself an expert on the subject of grieving and loss, I have probably thought 100% more about it in the last five years than I have in my previous 48 years on Earth. So it will come as no surprise to you that I have some thoughts on this.

I find it fascinating how we bend and shape words to suit our needs. The old adage about sticks and stones and words is not shared by everyone, most especially Generation Z, who will be the first to tell you that words matter, and not the way you think they do.

Sure, we have, as a society, ascribed positive and negative inference into certain words, and those inferences have all but completely altered the word’s meaning. Holiday words. Childhood words. Typically associated with good memories, unless you came from a dysfunctional or abusive family. And this is where you see those slap-fights online all the time with people who hate Christmas because it always meant massive family in-fighting and so THAT’S why you shouldn’t just tell everyone “MERRY CHRISTMAS” nilly-willy until you find out if that’s a trigger for them.

I don’t subscribe to that. I’m all for policing language, up to a point. My own personal metric on what I will and will not say in public is my only set of guidelines, and I trust my judgement on this because I deal in words in my art, on a professional level. For the stuff we all agree on? No problemo. But I refuse to get upset over Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah because no one is trying to pick a fight with those sayings. Well, unless they are…but you know what I mean.

Conversely, we have those words with negative connotations, like the words “death” and “dying.” No one wants to say them out loud; no one likes the sound of them, especially when used as intended in a sentence instead of as an emotional intensifier or a adverbial phrase. This is where “passed on” and “moved on” and “ascended” and “was welcomed into the arms of Jesus Christ, our lord and savior, as a choir of angels sang them to their rest” come in. I’m sure I’m forgetting some, but you get me. “No longer with us.” Monty Python did one of their all-time best sketches about a Dead Parrot that rattles off some of the more colorful turns of phrase.

I first encountered the term “fur babies” on the Internet. I don’t like that expression, and I don’t use it, myself, to describe my dog nor anyone else’s. Likewise I first saw mention of “the rainbow bridge” online, in reference to someone’s beloved dog dying. I find this a bit odd that there are so many people being welcomed into the the arms of Jesus by singing angels and yet, all of our pets have to go to Mythic Scandinavia, to do what, exactly? Hang out with Vikings and drink mead?

Sonya was not a Viking dog, despite the admittedly Howardian origins of her name. She didn’t even like Thor. Her favorite Marvel movie was Captain America: First Avenger, for Pete’s sake. She also liked the Netflix Daredevil series, mostly for Charlie Cox, but her all-time favorite super hero was Wonder Woman. Shouldn’t she get a Greco-Roman afterlife? I think she’d get a lot more out of Mount Olympus than a Viking mead hall. Even sending her to Paradise Island would be enough. She could run around all day, playing in the grass and the dirt, and then at night, hang out with the girls. Perfect Tomboy set-up, if you ask me.

I told her the blue contacts were a little much, but she insisted…

I don’t need the euphemisms, I really don’t. I think we have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to curtail certain words, and change the meaning of other words to mean lots of things, instead of just letting language be language and keep the meanings intact. I’ve always alleged that it’s not what you say but what you’re thinking that makes a statement rude or unkind. Go watch any teenage movie with a Queen Bee character and see how she compliments the kid she’s bullying. “Love your outfit; where did you get it?” is like pushing a thirteen year old girl through razor wire.

I’m reluctant to share with you my thoughts about domesticated animals—those animals we have, over the course of 10,000 years or so, shaped and bred into companions for us—and the way that we bond with them, because it’s just this side of Earthy-Crunchy and you may not want to hear it. Instead, I’ll back it up just a bit and say that we as humans can put energy—ourselves, our heart and soul, our time, our good intentions—into tasks, into people, into making art, and into pets. It’s not a secret that dogs and cats know when we’re sad, happy, etc. They have that capability, from living with us and putting up with our shit for thousands of years.

I gave something of myself to Sonya. So did Cathy. So did Janice. So did the many others who cared for her, and watched over her and sent their love in her direction. I think that’s why we feel for dogs as strongly as we do, and also, why it hurts like hell when they die. (I almost wrote “have to leave us”) That’s why I view pet ownership as a responsibility. It’s a privilege that we accept, a covenant we make, to take care of another living soul.

It's blatantly obvious some people don’t feel that way about it; otherwise, that Sarah Mclachlan Human Society commercial wouldn’t wipe us all out every time we see it—or, for some of us, make us boiling mad at anyone who’d do such a thing to a dog or a cat. We can discount these people from such a discussion, since they don’t care one way or the other, and God help them, while we’re at it.

But for me, I am okay with saying Sonya died. It’s what happened. Her organs were failing her and she was shutting down on us. Our vet had her on an IV, giving her fluids because she wasn’t eating. And when she heard my voice, she stood up, for the first time in two days. I think she thought she was going home. But her back and hip muscles were hardening and it was tougher and tougher for her to walk, much less sit down and get up and lay down without a lengthy process. She was 12 years old, nearly 13. She was in pain. We could all see it.

I’d been dreading having to make the decision to put her to sleep. But I’d been terrified of waking up one morning to find she’d died in the night and I couldn’t say goodbye to her. The thought of carrying her lifeless body down the stairs was too much for me to contemplate. There is no good way to do it. That choice, that decision. Janice and I had talked about it a lot recently, and we both agreed we didn’t want her to suffer. Not with liver and kidney failure. It was time.

Our vets Rob and Lindsay, made her comfortable and we sat with her. I sang to her the song she used to howl along with; “sing the blues” was our version of “speak.” The song was Jack Teagarden’s “I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues,” and we used to sing it ironically, because she sounded heartbroken at the thought of not getting a piece of bacon or whatever I was eating. When I sang it for her yesterday, it meant something else entirely.

Folks came in to say goodbye, including Rob and Lindsay’s girls. It was a scene all too familiar for me. But I’m glad they got the chance to talk to her. Sonya had a lot of friends. It was hard to pet her; she was so skinny, and I think rubbing her in the usual places like her sides or her breastbone were painful. I took to the only spot I could touch her that still gave her some comfort, behind her ears. I just rubbed on that spot I knew she liked. She put her head down on the back of my hand, propping her chin up. I got a little “moo” from her, her noise she made when she was content. It sounds a lot like a dog version of Marge Simpson’s disapproval sound. It’s a funny noise. I think she was ready to not be in pain anymore.

We were both talking to her, and I know it was a bit confusing because I was crying and trying not to. It always upset her when I cried. I know that because she had to live with me for a year and a half when it was just us in the house, and she wasn’t able to comfort me. I know now it’s because my crying after Cathy died was anger manifesting itself. This crying was different; it was heartbreak, loss, and sadness.

As she was falling asleep, I told her to go find Cathy. One final game of “find it,” to be carried out on the other side. We sat there in the room with her and let her breathing slow down and her heart stopped beating under my hand. I couldn’t feel her breath on my arm anymore. She was gone. My beautiful, goofy, sweet-natured, outgoing and friendly dog, and she took a piece of my soul with her.

She was a good girl.

This is Sonya, how I see her in my mind. Rest in Peace, Good Girl.

Mark Finn is one of the most opinionated and influential experts on Robert E. Howard in the state of Texas. He’s an author out of largesse rather than as a vocation and writes stories because he can’t play the guitar. He loves gorillas, values a well-placed conversational movie quote, and treasures the picaresque in literature. Annoyed with people’s misunderstanding of popular culture, he took it upon himself to buy a movie theater so he could lord it over every film student on the Internet. He likes to say, “If three people tell you you’re drunk, go lie down.”