The photo of Leo up top is something I posted to my personal Facebook a week ago last night. I wrote, “Watching YouTube videos, as one does, and Leo says, “Oy, what about ME?!” And so it is.” While the specific motivation was that he looked cute, which isn’t unusual for him, of course, but there’s a story I never mentioned at the time—or in the week since. This post, then, is about the missing story.
Tuesday of last week was an awful day for me (because, reasons), so by the evening all I wanted to do was to watch some TV, then catch up on the YouTube Channels I subscribe to. I decided to watch the fourth season premier of a New Zealand-made reality show called “The Casketeers”, which is about Tipene Funerals (the series is on Netflix now, apparently). I’ve watched the show from the beginning because it’s just plain nice, and not merely entertaining.
What I’ve particularly liked about the series is the kindness and respect shown by the Tipenes and their staff, like, for example, they always talk of the deceased person as being in their care. I’ve learned so much about rituals and practices of Pacific peoples in particular, and I also learned more about Māori beliefs and practices, all wrapped up with their kindness and respect for the families, as well as a gentle, respectful way of teaching the rest of us. It’s extremely well done—and, I should add, it’s often very funny, especially because Francis Tipene (the husband) is a character, and the dynamic with his wife, Kaiora, is as entertaining as you’ll find on any general light entertainment reality show—and that’s a good thing, by the way.
I admit, I wasn’t sure I could still watch the series after Nigel died, for obvious reasons, but it turned out that I could, and it was actually oddly comforting. I definitely see or react to some things in the show differently now than before, but the feels have always been good—until that night.
One of the people in their care was brought to a Baptist church in Auckland for her funeral, and they first brought her into a side chapel so that the family could have some private time to say goodbye. Off camera, they removed the lid and put it aside, and later the camera showed the lid, which was plain MDF (may have been an unlined underside, I don’t know). The family had written all sorts of messages on it, which was one of the things Nigel told me he wanted for his funeral (in his case, it was all over the outside).
When I saw that scene, I fucking lost it. I positively wailed, something that hasn’t happened to me in I don’t know how long—a very long time, though. Leo was out of my sight at the time, but he heard me, came near me and looked at me with a kind of puzzled look that dogs sometimes get. He trotted off to the back of the house where he’d left his toy bone, trotted back to me, jumped up in my lap, and started gnawing on the toy. He’d stop every now and then, look back at me, and he’d flop against me. I heard somewhere that when a dog leans into a person, it’s their version of a hug. At that moment, it certainly felt like one.
Leo’s never really paid all that much attention to me when I cried, but this time he did. Maybe he’d sensed that I was feeling off that day, maybe it’s because it’s been a long time since I had a breakdown, I don’t know, but this time, when it did the most good, he was there.
He stayed near me the rest of the evening, and later on, when I was watching YouTube videos, he jumped onto the sofa, which is next to my chair, and played with his toys, stopping sometimes to just watch me. He looked so adorable that I had to take the photo above.
That night, he slept laying against me all night long, something he hadn’t done for a few weeks (lately, he’s been laying against me in the mornings rather than all night). It could’ve just been coincidence, but I was glad all the same.
I have no idea why that one brief scene in a TV show that I like set me off like an emotional rocket, but it did. Maybe it was because I’d had such a shitty day, maybe it was just something that was overdue and bound to happen sooner or later, anyway—and I did feel better afterward.
I’ve often said that kindness toward others ought to be our default position because we can never know what someone else may be going through silently. I definitely try to practice what I preach, but sometimes the best way to reinforce my message is to share an example of what I’m talking about. That night last week, I shared a cute photo of Leo, but there was a then-secret reason why I took that photo, and it’s exactly the sort of hidden thing I’m talking about.
That night I had a bad patch (for whatever reason), and Leo was especially cute and lovable, possibly because of it, but appreciated regardless. I’m fine now, of course—I was fine after the “storm” ended. But I’m happy to report that Leo is still cute and lovable every day, if maybe a bit less attentive overall than he was that night.
This is was a story that was hidden in a photo of Leo, one not so very different from lots of photos I’ve taken of him, or of any of the other furbabies over the years. Even so, the hidden story is precisely what made it different from so many of those earlier photos. Not for the first time, no one would know the truth if I didn’t say something, but withholding truth isn’t how I’ve approached this whole journey up until now; I see no reason to change that.
Photos aren’t always what they seem, nor is what people convey and project in person. There may be hidden or unspoken stories behind them, and I believe we ought to be mindful and act with kindness toward others. Maybe the hidden stories are revealed, or maybe they’re not, but what happens may be influenced in part on how we treat those with hidden stories. The photo above is a simple example of how that works in real life, and this post supplies the hidden story.
Unusually, it seems, this post began life as something that I never posted to Facebook: I wrote the first draft a week ago today, intending to post it to my personal Facebook, but I changed my mind and decided it would be better as a blog post—again, “because, reasons”. And yes, there’s a hidden story there, too. Maybe that’s for another day.
1 comment:
Canine rescue has a different meaning!
I gave a talk yesterday, then the technology failed me. So I just winged it. I ended up telling a story about my dad during WWII, something I've written about. I almost never talk about my dad anymore, except to my sisters and occasionally to my wife. I should probably write about that.
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