Death and Nemo
Yesterday my mother-in-law’s Rottweiler, aged fourteen, collapsed in the yard and was eventually taken to the vet to be put down. It was difficult for all of us, but not so much for Nemo. I will explain.
As you know from reading this blog devotedly, Nemo has Asperger Syndrome. It’s a form of autism that has no cure and limited treatment options. Certain concepts simply don’t register for kids like Nemo and one of those, we discovered yesterday, is death.
Carlie, the dog, had been around as long as Nemo has been alive, a constant presence at Grandma’s house. You would think that after all that time Nemo might have formed some kind of attachment to the dog, and lest my child sound like a monster he did have a fondness for her. Carlie was just not the most active dog in the world and I suspect if she had been more playful it would have made more of a difference in terms of the bond they formed.
At any rate, Nemo knew the dog and probably cared for her in his own way, but it’s different for him than it is for us. I would also guess that his attachment to our dog, Allie is much greater since they sleep together and play together.
So when it was time for Carlie to be put down, I tried to explain to Nemo that she was going away and never coming back. He didn’t take this like you or I might, but in a kind of matter-of-fact way. Finally she was dead after receiving her lethal shots and when Carlie was rolled away on the gurney he just said, “Bye, Carlie!” as if they would see each other again soon.
I guess in one way I wish I could be like Nemo. It does no good to be paralyzed with grief over the death of a pet, no matter how beloved, but I also kind of wish that he’d been able to receive the news in a way that’s more “normal.”
I don’t doubt that when Grandma dies or when Allie dies that he’s going to take it harder. I don’t believe that he will have the same detachment. But it was strange to not have the long discussion of the meaning of death that might have been the end result of telling a non-Asperger child that a longtime pet was going to be put down.
Hoarders
I’m not sure when I turned into such a reality-show watcher. When it comes to Hoarders, though, I’m blaming Heather Havrilesky for her illuminating article on hoarding and how the show helped her.
I will not say I’m a hoarder, but I will say the possibility of becoming one is definitely there. I have a tendency to acquire and hang onto stuff, especially books, even when I’ve run out of space to put them all and piles are starting to accumulate on the floor. The people on Hoarders have it a hundred or a thousand times worse.
The program says at the head of every episode that there are three million hoarders in the United States. I’m not sure how they came up with this number, but it seems like a hell of a lot. Certainly they seem to have a steady supply of people whose hoarding has gotten entirely out of control. There are houses so full of stuff that they can barely be moved through, some of them so filthy that there are dead animal carcasses among the junk. This isn’t just a situation where somebody has too much stuff in the garage.
I find watching Hoarders both frightening and frustrating. Frightening because I can see in myself, my wife and my son the potential for serious hoarding behavior if we aren’t careful. My son hoards cardboard. My wife hoards paperwork. I have my books, as I mention.
I’ve managed to do something about the books, at least. I gave away a metric ton of books a few years back and have since done my level best not to buy any more. Occasionally I’ll slip up and something will come from Amazon or the used bookstore, but for the most part I’ve stopped the accumulation, which is step one to resolving a hoarding situation.
It’s a little more difficult with MJ and Nemo’s hoarding. Paperwork naturally comes into the house. It comes in the mail or in Nemo’s backpack from school and it has a way of building up on the kitchen table or the counter until no one’s really sure what’s in the pile or why it’s sitting there.
Happy birthday, MJ!
There will be cake.
The battle.
This morning Nemo did not want to go to school. Thus began the battle.
When most kids don’t want to go to school, they pout a little and drag their heels but at least they go. When Nemo doesn’t want to go, it turns into a physical struggle, complete with kicking, screaming and flying fists.
Acting out is one of the things they’re working on with Nemo at his school. He will often “posture up” when angry, balling up his fist and acting like he’s going to hit someone. He’s actually kicked me more than once. It’s very difficult to resist the urge to give him a whack on the keister when he does that, even though such a thing would do more harm than good.
This morning it was a big battle over his laptop. He wanted to stay home and play with it, while we wanted him out the door and onto the bus to school. Yes, he’s a little spoiled having his own laptop, but normally he’s very good about putting it away when it’s time and doing what has to be done. For whatever reason this morning, his wig-out trigger was pulled and we were in a fight.
Unfortunately the battle went on longer than we would have liked, and he missed the bus, so in the end he got what he wanted, which was not to go to school. We’re stuck explaining that we can’t put him on the bus when he’s in full-on meltdown mode (he’s not allowed) and he gets the further sense that he can get away with skipping school if he just acts crazy enough.
It’s frustrating, but for now I have no real solutions.
