Yesterday, my brother and his family lost their dog, Tony, to cancer. I had seen Tony only a couple of times. He was the kindest and smartest dog I have ever seen. I remember him playing with his toys, and then taking them and placing them back in the basket where they were kept. I remember his big bright eyes while eagerly waiting for my niece to be done with playfully arranging pieces of treat on his arm and then telling him to go ahead and eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s hard to lose a loved one. It doesn’t matter if it is a human being or a pet. Losing pets is especially difficult because they are so innocent and one typically does not have any bad memories of them. Dogs are even more special in that sense, since all they have for their human friends is love; they won’t hate you no matter how mad you get at them if they do something bad. You may yell at your dog and tell him that he has been a bad boy, and a few seconds later he will come to you and will lick your hand or rub his head to your feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have lost two dogs ourselves. Both losses were, and still to some extent are, devastating. It’s almost impossible to forget your dog friend no matter how long it’s been since you’ve lost them. We lost Tiny to a painful accident in 2019. After close to seven years, I still cannot hold my tears every time I see a picture of him or remember him in any other way. And then we lost Munchkin to cancer, on March 1st, 2025. During the more than 13 months since he passed, I doubt there has been more than a handful of days during which my eyes did not tear up for him at least once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, after hearing the news about Tony, I feel the same devastation, the same deep sadness, the same feeling of disgust about the workings of the nature and our world. I know there is nothing anyone can do. I know losses are part of our lives. I know losses are tied to belongings and connections, and that if one does not want to endure losses, they will have to forgo any meaningful connection in their life. But still, it is difficult to come to terms with this reality every time a loss like this happens. And I think to myself, if I am feeling this much sadness and devastation, how are my brother and my niece holding up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My only advice to my brother was to remember that they had done anything and everything they could, and that they should not feel any regrets. They provided a good life for Tony for over 10 years, and both them and Tony enjoyed being together. In reality, that seems to be all that matters. There are no alternatives to losing loved ones. If you live long enough, you will inevitably experience significant losses and the subsequent devastation and sadness. Maybe the lucky ones are the ones who do not live long enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, I cried my eyes out, for Tony, for Munchkin, for Tiny, and maybe more than all, for myself, and for the loss I am feeling so strongly. Tomorrow will be a new day. Maybe I will be able to forget, at least for brief moments, how cruel our reality is. Or maybe I will be even more depressed. Either way, I will try to push through. I will try to drown myself in work and try to forget about everything and anything; from our own losses, to the larger scale losses, and all the atrocities that are happening around the globe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday, my brother and his family lost their dog, Tony, to cancer. I had seen Tony only a couple of times. He was the kindest and smartest dog I have ever seen. I remember him playing with his toys, and then taking them and placing them back in the basket where they were kept. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,9,13,7,11,10],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-munchkin","tag-dog","tag-grief","tag-loss","tag-munchkin","tag-tiny","tag-tony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munchkin-and-tiny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}