Book Closed and Completely Satisfied

 
    Just finished reading Old Yeller with Elijah.  I couldn't even read the last chapter.  My words were thin and my breath was short.  Elijah who always sits opposite of me on the bed while I read, kept knocking my feet with a "MOM, it's okay.  It's okay, mom.  Just stop, okay." I can't believe how badly I broke down.  If you haven't read the book then I hope you've seen the movie and if you've done neither then shame on you.  Old Yeller was the first movie I ever saw that made me cry.   The Fox and the Hound was the second.  I remember them both so vividly.  While I was reading those last chapters and * spoiler alert, the dog dies, I was picturing the actor who played Travis through all his tears as he had to make the hard decision and shoot his beloved stray dog.  Like yesterday. And I haven't seen it since.
      I finally got through it.  Closed the book, heaved a big sigh and Elijah ran into the girl's room where Kenny was reading to the girls and told them all about mom crying.  I admit it.  I'm a wimp.  But it was so, so satisfying to cry.  There is something great about reading a book that is set in a location and time and way of life completely unlike your own.  A time like Little House on the Prairie when every single thing you owned or ate took work, lots of hard arduous labor.  And while you're reading a book like that, you start to understand the mentality that life is not cush, and that things have to die, and animals who had hydrophobia (rabies, we call it) must be shot.  What's so satisfying is that the author Fred Gibson, made me care so much about this boy and his dog, so much so that I was a blubbering idiot. He made me care that in a life where everything works on Survival of the Fittest, where animals come and go as needed, this dog who protected a family from a bull, a hog, and a wild wolf meant something to them.  He meant something to me. And I don't even own a dog.

But like every other reader in the world who has a soul (just kidding), we get it.  We understand animal stories.  And we cry when the heroic dog dies. And then we close the book, relieved it's over.

And then our kids poke fun at us.
The price we pay, dear readers, to be satisfied.