Commentary
Friday, March 10, 1995 Page 5
Death of pet makes girl ‘Real'
Peaches died last night.
He had a good life — for a
guinea pig.
As he took his last breath, his
thin, worn body was held and
stroked by someone who truly
loved him.
My daughter, Anna, lost her first
pet. She learned some hard lessons
and made some tough choices.
In the classic tale “The Velve
teen Rabbit,” by Margery Will
iams, the rabbit asks the Skin Horse
about what it means to be Real.
“You become, it takes a long
time.”
Peaches’ death helped Anna
become. ...
Yesterday she rose far above her
10 years. Last night Anna had to
deal with death on its own terms.
She took what the universe handed
her and plowed right through it.
And she handled it with the kind
of aplomb that made her mama
proud.
When the veterinarian asked her
if she wanted him to euthanize
Peaches to hasten his demise, she
told him, “No.” Instead she
wrapped Peaches in his blanket and
took him home.
She held him on her belly, like
she had done so many times before,
and waited for him to die.
“Mommy. Oh, Mommy, he’s
gone.”
Oh, Anna ...
Then she made another decision:
she wanted to have Peaches
cremated.
So she put on her coat and
carried her precious pet out to the
car one last time.
This morning we picked up his
ashes. She transferred them, out o£,,
the sterile plastic bag and placed '
them on a beautiful purple-and
gold square of fabric. We tied it up
with a bit of ribbon and said a
prayer.
Cindy Lange-Kubick
Then we cried.
She talked.
I listened.
“Remember when I got Peaches,
and he crawled into the pocket of
the man at the pet store because he
was so scared?”
“Remember how I saved my
money so I could buy him, and I
was afraid someone else would get
him?”
Then I talked and she listened.
Remember? Remember how he
chewed up your books and ate your
hair? Remember how he got lost in
your room and left poop trails in
the basement?
We found an old photo — Anna
with her baby teeth. Peaches in the
palm of her hand.
I told Anna what a good friend
she’d been to Peaches. I said that
Peaches was probably the only
guinea pig in town whose owner
threw him an annual birthday party.
Parties replete with invitations,
cake (carrot cake, of course) and
presents (lots of guinea-pig fare:
lettuce, carrots, a cucumber or
two.)
Then she said she was ready to
go back to school.
Back to life.
To the rest of the world, Peaches
simply a guinea pig, an
oVdrgrown tnbu^a large furry
rodent whose name has become
synonymous with experimentation.
But to Anna, Peaches was much
more.
I don’t know for sure if Peaches
loved Anna. He squealed when she
walked into the room. He let her
hold him and stroke him and put
him on a leash for walks outside.
I do know that Anna loved
Peaches. With all her heart.
Peaches helped make Anna
Real, like the little boy makes the
Velveteen Rabbit real in Margery
Williams’ story.
Her love for little Peachy was
pure, without ambiguity. He was
somebody she could talk to when
she hated her brothers and when
her parents were too busy to listen.
Peachy didn’t talk back. She loved
him without asking for anything in
return.
Anna doesn’t know it yet, but
life is a series of lessons, and death
is one of them. For a child, that
first brush with mortality often
comes through the death of a pet.
What better way is there for
Anna to learn about love and
letting go? And what better way for
her mother to learn about trust and
resiliency and the ebb and flow of
life?
“Real isn’t how you are made,
it’s a thing that happens to you,”
the Skin Horse tells the rabbit.
Last night Anna laid on the
couch covered up with a tattered
quilt her great-grandmother had
made, her eyes red and swollen.
“Mommy, my head.”
Her head throbbed, and her
stomach hurt.
Last night her body hurt, and
her heart ached.
And that is good.
Because what the Skin Horse
said is true: “Sometimes when you
are Real you don’t mind being
hurt.”
Lange-Kublck is a senior news-editorial
and sociology major and a Dally Nebraskan
columnist
Life not changed by ‘what if s
“What if...”
I was thinking about those two
words recently. For me, they hold a
significant meaning.
“What if...” was a sort of
childhood game for me. It also
became a way for me to learn some
lessons about life and about myself.
As a child, I had quite a habit of
beginning many sentences with
those two words. It was easy. It’s
still easy.
What if I won the lottery? What
if I study all night for this test?
What if Kennedy hadn’t gone to
Dallas that day?
See how fun it is? It’s so easy.
Just take anything in life and add
the words “what if’ in front of it,
and you’re playing the “What if...”
game.
The problem with this, and the
lesson I learned from playing this
game as a child, is that it doesn’t
really matter. Placing the words
“what if’ in front of a situation
changes nothing about you as a
person, or anything in your life, for
that matter.
I remember the first time I got
burned by playing the “What if...”
game.
I was in kindergarten. It was
show-and-tell time. One of my
classmates was fortunate enough to
have a dog that had just given
puppies.
Can you see where this is going?
My classmate’s mother brought a
box full of adorable little puppies,
and mentioned, off-hand of course,
that she was going to give these
puppies away.
Can you imagine that? A new
puppy, for free. Life was indeed
grand.
I raced home that afternoon and
clutched onto my mom as soon as I
burst through the door. “Mom,
Jerry’s dog had puppies, and
Todd Elwood
they’re just giving them away. Can
we have one? Please, please, puh
lease?”
Acting as any intelligent woman
would, my mother replied, “Wait
until your dad gets home. Ask
him.”
I crouched by the front door,
ready to pounce on my unsuspect
ing father. The knob turned, and
the prey stepped forth.
“Dad, can we have a puppy?” I
yelled as my hello. “They’re giving
them away. It won’t cost a thing!”
And acting as any intelligent
man would when his excited son
asks for something, my father
replied, “You won’t take care of
it.”
“But what if I do?” I pleaded.
“What if I feed it every day? What
if I take it for walks around the
block? What if I love it?”
Waiting until my tirade was
finished, my dad looked into my
face and replied, “What if your ears
fall off?’
I was dumbfounded. What if my
ears fall off? What did that mean?
That had nothing to do with what I
wanted. It made no sense.
My older brother, who had been
watching the whole scene, coolly
added,‘If his nose fell off, he
would still smell.”
That was the first time I learned
that placing two simple words in
front of a situation was not the way
to go. It made no difference that I
was sincere in my “what if’
questions. I hadn’t really consid
ered what I was saying, and my
passions had gotten the better of
my judgment.
I still believed, as a 5-year-old
wanting a free puppy, that I would
take care of the little dog, but now
I realize I was fooling myself.
Just saying the words “what if’
does nothing to change any
situation. It had been a game. I
wanted a puppy, but I was not
prepared to take care of one, no
matter how many “what if’
promises I made. I wanted a cute
little animal, and my words were
nothing but a game.
I have been scorned many times
by playing the “What if...” game.
But every time I play, I remember
that I must do something rather
than merely vowing to do some
thing.
What if I won the lottery? It’s a
pointless thing to wonder unless I
do win. What if my ears fall off?
What if I study all night for the
test? I can either study all night or
not; then I will know the answer.
What if my ears fall off?
What if Kennedy hadn’t gone to
Dallas that day? He did, and he’s
dead. What’s to wonder? What if
my ears fall off?
I would like nothing more in this
world than to be a newspaper
columnist. I want to be read,
enjoyed and well known for the
words that I string together.
But what if I do become a
famous newspaper columnist?
What if Mike Royko and Dave
Barry call me for advice? What if I
am read and loved by thousands?
Yes, absolutely, and what if my
ears fall off?
Elwood Is a senior English and sociology
ma|or, and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
Clarkstuckbetween
rock and hard place
Now at least we know the
precise mathematical point
between a rock and a hard place.
It’s Marcia Clark’s life.
She’s the prosecutor in a case
so high-pressure and so cel
ebrated that it’s headline news if
she drops a verb or rips a
stocking.
She’s a single mother compet
ing with the big boys. When she
tried to get home on time one
night, Johnnie Cochran called
her child-care worries a strategic
ploy.
And she’s an ex-wife whose
ex-husband is suing for custody
of their two boys on the grounds
that he can be home at 6:15. This
is what he tells the world: “I
have personal knowledge that on
most nights she does not arrive
home until 10 p.m., and even
when she is home, she is work
ing.”
You want a single mother s
nightmare? You want a profes
sional mother’s post-modem
bind? You want to chart this
terrain between a rock and a hard
place? I give you Marcia Clark.
Clark didn’t arrive at the site
of this disaster on purpose. She
and her husband split up three
days before Nicole Simpson was
murdered. She was, I am sure,
familiar with the conflict
between work and family. But
now she’s caught in a head-on
collision at 90 miles an hour
without an air bag.
Remember Jennifer Ireland?
This young woman lost custody
of her 3-year-old daughter
Maranda because she left her in
“the care of strangers” — day
care — to take college classes. A
judge ruled that Maranda would
be better off with her father,
cared for by family. The ruling
was only stayed pending appeal.
Remember Sharon Prost? This
woman who works in Sen. Orrin
Hatch’s office lost custody of her
sons because the judge said she
put her job before her kids. Her
ex-husband — who’d been
unemployed for a year — won
because his hours were shorter.
Well, it’s going around.
In the world of flat-out,
stressed-out two-job marriages,
parents negotiate work and kids,
bosses and caregivers, with a
time clock in one hand and a
calculator in another. For the
most part, women are the ones
who do the juggling and the
compromising, who turn from
career paths to mommy tracks.
But if the marriage ends in the
courtroom, they’d better be able
to prove it. They’d better not be
guilty of success.
These days half of the custody
disputes are won by fathers.
These days fathers who are sued
for money often sue for kids in a
Ellen Goodman
mutually assured destruction
tactic of post-marital warfare.
These days it seems that many
judges have a new double
measuring stick. Mothers who do
less caregiving than the judge’s
mother did are seen as neglect
ful. Fathers who do more are
seen as heroic.
But what about the other
deal? What are we saying to a
single mother who works two
jobs to make ends meet? To a
divorced woman expected to be
both breadwinner and nurturer?
To the mother who has to choose
between a high-octane job or a
low wage?
The message is: Watch out.
Time may be the only standard
on which you’re judged as a
parent.
Well, one of the great modem
myths is quality time. Kids need
quantity as well. Every parent
makes choices, but the work
world doesn’t make these
choices easy. In the Simpson
case, there is no flex time, no job
share, no part time. Johnnie
Cochran said once that he
regretted not spending more time
with his children. But Marcia
Clark cannot leave at 3.
wevertneiess, time is not the
only measure of a parent’s love,
or a child’s best interest or
Marcia Clark’s fitness.
Believe it or not, the O.J.
Simpson case will not go on
forever. It just seems that way.
It’s wrong to decide something
as permanent as a child’s
lifelong custody on something as
temporary as trial.
In any work life there will be
a time when one parent’s job is
too demanding, when she is sick
or he has to travel. If every
change in one parent’s work
schedule risks a change in
custody, divorcing couples will
be in court longer than Judge Ito.
As for Gordon Clark? He may
be a father worried about his
sons or he may be an ex-husband
out to defeat his ex-wife. But
what impeccable timing. What
better moment for a man to tell a
woman in full view of the world
that she can’t have it all.
Marcia Clark is at the top of
her form. And still stuck.
Between work and family.
Between a rock and a hard place.
(c) 1995 The Boston Globe Newspaper
Company