Punch and Mum, circa 1960Sometimes, amongst the flippancy and frivolity, there’s different emotion lurking.
Sacha Black offers prompts weekly at Writespiration
Punch leading the way out of the box…This week it is
Write about a nostalgia that hurts in less than 200 words
I’ve written about my dogs in this blog, those who’ve been part of my family recently.
He never tired…But I haven’t written about my first, bitter loss.
Not like the Archaeologist to be bored… At least the dog is interested‘Where’s Punch?’
The dog had been ill for weeks, barely able to stand at times, often off his food. But you entered the room and his stub of a tail wagged like Mrs Pritchard’s admonishing finger when my attention wandered. I’d been told a healthy dog had a cold nose; I’d taken to checking. His nose passed.
‘Dad’s taken him outside.’
How long is a moment? How far does disbelief stretch? At what point does a tissue of a hope crease and crumple to reveal a universal truth?
Maybe I’d been lucky to reach a unsullied 14 with no experience of death. Maybe not. I’d no bedrock, no relevant experience – how can any previous experience prepare you for something so visceral? Does losing a second limb hurt less?
Not sure how I didn’t lose that arm…Parents lie; but however consummate their lying they can’t hide their own hurt. It might be in the timbre of their voice, in the shape of their shoulders, in the stiff way they stir something as mundane as porridge.
This is so staged. I had (have) no idea how to use a plane.Mum gave away, in the time it took to say those four words that our dog, a constant at my side since I was 3, was dead.
The clock ticked inexorably towards the next death, the shed door shut and dad came in for breakfast.
RIP Punch
Punchenello Tillingdown, the name on his pedigree certificate – thank you
TanGental 
Very moving portrait of a moment in time, Geoff. I’m not surprised it’s a memory that’s still so fresh. If I’d had a dog when I was 14 it would have half-killed me to lose him. Just a question—and I’m not being flippant, morbid maybe but not flippant—what was your dad doing in the shed?
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That’s where he hid the body – in a crate – until he could get rid of it.
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Oh dear. Everybody’s attitude to death is different, and so many parents think that children should never have to look it in the eye. As if by not ever seeing anything dead, death will cease to exist for them. Our dead pets have all had proper funerals and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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We have done the same with our dead pets too. Perhaps a different generation, I don’t know. I’m sure they meant well. Dreadful epitaph.
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They did mean well. It’s just, you know what they say about good intentions. There was uproar here when we left poor Branwell for the vet to have incinerated. There just wasn’t another place in our tiny garden with the soil depth to out him in. Not somewhere Finbar wouldn’t instantly find him anyway. The children had been expecting a proper burial, a coffin and all his worldly goods in it.
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Gosh. No we cremate and have urns and boxes around. Sort of nice in s macabre way.
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Snuff boxes for the hamsters, that kind of thing? In a glass cabinet or on the piano?
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That’s it. More functional really. Paperweights door stops
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We knew a couple in Paris, with a couple of small children. it was tragic really. He was carried off by a flu that developed complications while he was lecturing in Italy. The cost of repatriation was so high, his wife had him cremated over there and had the ashes sent back. They kept ‘papa’ on the piano.
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Sweet in its way. I wonder if he enjoyed the vibrations.
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He probably appreciated the humour. I never met anyone who laughed so much.
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jesus, I have a lump in my throat. This:
Parents lie; but however consummate their lying they can’t hide their own hurt. It might be in the timbre of their voice, in the shape of their shoulders, in the stiff way they stir something as mundane as porridge.
Is SUCH a powerful emotional image.
Not sure how to collate all this, so I think I will link to it. ❤
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That must have been a horrendous time for you Geoff, especially as you had grown up with Punch at your side.
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I remember it as being more numb than anything, sort of me watching me if you know what I mean.
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What an absolutely gorgeous big sweetie. He was so very proud and distinguished looking.
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He was HUGE, at least to we kids. His chest was like a wooden board too. Solid really doesn’t do him justice.
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One of my first dogs was a boxer – excellent dogs. 😢
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So sad, Geoff. You conveyed your pain as fresh as though it had happened yesterday. RIP Punch.
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yep, like that first dawning realisation. Never really goes, or rather it is easy to recall with the right stimulus.
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Such strong emotional moments tend to sear themselves quite well into our memories. We may think we’ve locked them away and papered over the cracks, but it doesn’t take much to release them again.
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A sad and moving story, Geoff.
I was just a bit younger, maybe 12?, when our family dog died. Zipper was already a part of our family before I was born and so she had always been a part of my life. That was my first experience with death, too. (My grandmothers had both died when I was very young, but I don’t really remember.)
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It’s so difficult to prepare. My two experienced it with an elderly cat. Tough for them to. Remembering Punch I offered them a chance to say a good bye. No idea if that helped at all, I just feel it might have me.
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I too remember with raw grief the loss of my first pet – I wonder if it is a universal thing………..
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I’m pretty sure it would be and the age is a difficult one anyway.
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Bittersweet, Geoff. He had a certain noble presence. Those companions are indeed family to us. I’m not surprised at the sorrow still evident in your words. 💔
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You really don’t forget that first time, do you, whoever or whatever it was
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I asked for a dog when I was two and my mother told me to wait till I was four, thinking I’d forget. Of course I didn’t and, a promise being a promise, got my dachshund. A few years later he was killed (by a car, I assume, since I never asked). At the time I was told he was sick, ‘in hospital’, until they confessed. Your post brought it all back, Goeff. And the photo of your Mum – the perm, the skirt – just like mine! What a lovely boxer Punch was, btw.
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Ah so tough. As for mum, no perm for her. Her curls where as natural as they were a bane of her life.
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Whereas mine had lovely straight auburn hair which she needlessly tortured.
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Beautiful tribute to Punch Geoff.. he looks like an amazing dog. We had a boxer in Cape Town and naval families passed him around every two years. He went to a neighbour on our departure but I felt devastated as he had been on the end of my bed for two years. RIP all our faithful fur family members.
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Such a heartbreak, and a poignant look at how well we can read grief in others despite best efforts to deny it. For a time we might not know what it is, but once experienced grief never looses its grip. RIP Punch.
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Very true; raw emotion can only be felt not communicated by mere words. It is beyond explanation
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They really do become part of the family, dont they?
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Yes. I feel cruel when we don’t share with our current incumbent because he is so much part of the pack, currently asleep in front of the fire. But the good stuff far outweighs those awful moments.
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Yes, definitely. 😊
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This was so moving, Geoff. I often cry when I think of my first dog, whose name was Jeffrey – he was my constant companion, and no dog since has quite measured up.
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Oh sad.
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Heartbreaking. It’s losing family.
Hugs
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Yes a good chunk of it.
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It would be easy to judge your mother for lying, except the way you wrote this makes us (well me) instantly aware of her suffering too, so I feel empathy. That, I think, indicates good writing!
On a totally different note, when I saw the first photo my first thought was “Why is Geoff wearing a dress/” I’m sure you’ve been told this before, but you look so much like your mother!! 🙂
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Thanks Yvonne and yes that has been noted !
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Wow, this is heavy, but beautifully written.
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Thanks Rachel. It was a long time ago but oh so easily recalled
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It’s both remarkable and also somehow encouraging that the loss of an animal can hurt almost as much as the loss of a person. I think it says something good about people.
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Well you’d hope Mick.
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I dread the moment when it comes to me.
Great emotionally writing, Geoff.
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