From the time Mottsu died, I began to dread the time Wally, his dog, would die. I wonder if others do that, after someone close to you dies and the mortality of all living things is reaffirmed, do you anticipate a further loss as unbearable? If that apprehension is a shared experience it isn’t one that has with shared with me, or by me until now.

Wally the most loved dogI feared the loss of Wally would be a grief too great, not on it’s own but compounded with the already bewildering loss of Mottsu, a grief to great to navigate with a sound mind. That sounds a bit theatrical. I didn’t want to be melodramatic and when I voiced my fears my friends brushed me off.

“Wally won’t die…” they said “he is healthy” I was told.

My head and heart knew otherwise, Wally was healthy and even so he would die one day. He was already 10, and the vet referred to him as a ‘senior pet’. The denial of existential reality distressed me, kind though the intent of friends was. I felt demented by my fears when no-one else heard them, and everyone refused to validate them.

Walking with Wally and Shortbread in the park one-day I bumped into Bill, walking his dogs. Bill was a friend and colleague of Mottsu’s, it was always good to see him. Bill asked how I was and I told him about my anxiety, my dark concern about how I would bear Wally’s death.

Bill spoke with calm and authority, “Anne” he said “Wally will die one day and you will be sad, you’ll be OK”.

Wally did die, I was there with him. I miss that little dog and it comforts me to imagine him reunited with Mottsu. Not floating on clouds together or playing fetch but the spirit of one consoled by the essence of the other.

Do you think that’s possible?