I just finished watching one of the saddest movies ever.
This was free on Roku today. My husband had seen it before but I hadn't so we watched it together.
The movie was
with Richard Gere. Such a love story between a man and his dog. No, the dog doesn't die. I don't want to give the plot away but when Richard dies the dog sits at the train station and waits for him to get off the train and come home. Spring, summer, fall, winter Hachi sits. As the tears streamed down my face and I stifle back sobs I think about this love and loyalty.
Yes it is hard to lose someone you love, grief is such an all encompassing emotion but we cannot explain death to animals. They must feel so abandoned. Yes people feel abandoned too. I know I did when my daddy died. So empty, so bereft. I remember going into is closet, smelling his clothes and sobbing. I remember a few years ago going to pay my respects to some friends who lost their mother and seeing the father sitting beside the casket, their dog sitting beside him. Such an emotional picture, so poignant. I had to hold back my sobs until I got back to the car.
Children don't understand death so do they wait and wait for their parent to come home? How does one explain this to a child? What about someone who is mentally impaired. Can they understand? Would they sit by a door and wait?
We've seen videos about dogs who greet their owners who have been deployed for years.
A friend told me that after her mother got dementia she would forget that her husband had died and would ask where is he? My friend reminded her that he'd died. She realized that her mother had to grieve all over again each time, so she stopped saying he'd died and said he was out fishing or doing something else.
Yes this is a tear jerker, I admit. Life can feel so empty when someone we love dies and won't be coming home again.
