• @zzzzzzyx
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    219 months ago

    This one is macabre.

    I am a homestead farmer so I have hundreds of animals most of which I raised like a baby, they all have names, each was hand fed and raised from birth by my wife and I. We are deeply attached to each of them and it is like losing a child when one dies.

    Firstly I can tell you that you can get used to your children dying, you can repress it. I’ve spent many hours digging graves over time made all the more painful by the fact that often times I would stay with these animals through the entirety of their ill health. Often they would sleep in the room with my wife and I or even in the bed if the right type. When you read something like charolettes Web or what have you and see some old farmer indifferent to their child who wants to keep their animal friend. That is not from some kind of “depersonisation” or dissonance or even indifference to this animal, it is knowing acceptance from a lifetime of pain watching their friends and children die and being forced to bury them.

    I can tell you that if you need cpr I’m your man, I’ve had alot of practice. There’s lots of things cpr won’t fix but that had never stopped me from trying. Maybe just maybe if they can have that extra breath or beat they can beat whatever ails them so I try. Here’s the fucked part; there is a moment where when something dies, it’s easier to see in mammals, there is a moment just before the death rattle, you can see the thing is dead and if you have seen this before you will know what I’m talking about. At this moment of gasping you can “catch” them, like you are catching their escaping souls with your lungs and blowing it back into their mouths. Their eyes get glazed and they do this straining wail and tilt their head, all things in the same way, that is your moment to bring them back and you can see it instantly as their eyes come back to focus and they usually scream in some way.

    I’ve only ever saved 2 in this fashion and I have a large grave yard.

    There is no God.

    • @FollyDolly
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      19 months ago

      As a fellow homestead owner I agree. There is no god. I was driving a goose to the emergency vet when she died in my passenger seat. It wasn’t…peaceful. Also have a large graveyard. Life is too short sometimes.