He’s almost a stranger to her.
Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I got a divorce from my husband five years ago and due to a small claims court order (that he brought on), I am forced to share custody of my BFF, a dog who is now almost 15. Since the judge ordered 50/50 custody to be exchanged locally, and the ex chose to move far away, he waived his custody unless he gave the required notice. He has been absent except for a partial week twice a year, when he comes to town. My dog has been declining in health and for the past year, I have cared for her through some challenging episodes, but she has recovered each time. Recently, she lost her appetite and has other signs she is declining quickly, and the vet and I discussed end-of-life planning and an in-home appointment so we could spend her final moments together in the garden sunshine instead of in the vet’s office after a stressful car ride.
I’m required by the court judgment for a mutual sign-off for euthanasia, but it is not defined any further. When I informed my ex what the vet and I discussed, he assumed I was inviting him to my home for her final appointment; he said it was what he signed up for when he got a dog. I moved from tearful informant to baffled disdain and shared that I couldn’t believe he expected to be there with her, as he is almost a stranger to her and will cause us both distress.
I offered him time to come say goodbye to her and he ignored the offer. He has since steamrolled me with emails, demanding to know when we set the date so he can make accommodations, asking why we can’t schedule for a weekend, and saying it is important for him to do this with both of us present. I am grieving, exhausted, and trying to spend quality time with my girl. I don’t know what to do or how to resolve this.
—Grieving Childless Dog Lady
Dear Grieving,
I am so sorry for the upcoming loss of your pet. I want to preface my reply by saying that everyone’s grief is different, and it depends on you as an individual, your relationship with the person—or pet—passing, the circumstances surrounding the death, etc. I cannot tell you the single right way to approach a death, because I don’t believe that a single right way exists. I will also preface by noting that I refer to human deaths in my response to your letter. Some readers might balk at the comparison, but to that, I say that grief is a profound human experience no matter who (or what) has died.
Prefaces now given, here are some things to consider:
I understand that your pet’s death is a very personal and impactful thing for you. It sounds like you and your dog have been a steadfast team these past five years, if not longer. I can also appreciate that, although your dog was a part of your ex’s life for a decade, she was a significant part of your new life after your marriage ended, which maybe gives you a sense of partnership and interdependence that your ex and the dog don’t share. So, I see how it might feel like an invasion to have him with you at this intimate, final moment.
But I also think that sometimes, grief is a time for grace—for making space for others, even when all you want to do is process it alone. You write that your husband is practically a stranger to your dog. Is that true? Dogs’ associative memory is rather long. And even if she is uncertain about his identity, would his presence stress her out or be, at worst, neutral? Meanwhile, your ex wants to be there. Maybe he hasn’t visited her as often as you think he should have, but if he didn’t care about the dog, I doubt he would have visited at all. How loved a person (or dog) is doesn’t necessarily correlate to how often one sees them.
I think if it were me, I would want to make space for love to show up in many varieties and forms. In my husband’s final days, part of me wanted to have him all to myself, and to be the person by his side in death as I’d been in life. But I wasn’t “the” only person who walked through his life with him, and those people deserved to love and honor him as much as I did. It was poignant to remember that I didn’t have a monopoly on grief. There are things I regret from his final days, but making space for others who needed to be there is not one of them.
If, in the end, your relationships with your dog and your ex are such that his presence will disrupt your ability to be fully present with your pet, then I suggest offering a compromise. Allow him in the yard to have a private goodbye with the dog, and then have him step back and let you be one-on-one in the final moments.
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