Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die
By: Jon Katz / Narrated By: Tom Stechschulte
Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
The takeaway: if you make a mistake with an animal, it’s okay to eat them or send them to slaughterhouses… I’m SERIOUS!
Yeh yeh yeh! I get it. When you work and live on a farm, life and death are intertwined. Anthropomorphizing can lead to unfortunate mistakes, like feeling bad about what you eat.
But really! Jon Katz goes waaaaaay too far in this regard, especially in a book that’s supposed to help you find comfort when you’re grieving over an animal.
I listened to this audiobook the day our Wootie died at home. We’d just dropped off his body at the Pet Loss Center, and I was brutally exhausted and somewhat emotionally fragile. And what did I get? Well, one story where Katz adopted a bull, but he says it was the wrong time of his life to do so, it was irresponsible, the bull had some health issues, and basically it was okay for him, Katz, to ship the bull off to a slaughterhouse. ‘Nother story? He saved a baby boy lamb, raised it with love and affection then decided to do the same thing because little boy lambs turn into headstrong rams and one can’t have that. A woman steps in, tries to treat it like a pet, but since things didn’t work out too well? She has him for her Thanksgiving dinner. And Katz relates this story in a quippy, jovial, I-told-you-so kinda way.
I mean, seriously! I needed stories like that when I was grieving mightily?!?
I’m sooo glad the audiobook was only 3 hours and 17 minutes. If it’d been 3 hours and 18 minutes, I probably would’ve screamed and spit nails. There is a really, REALLY fantastic letter from a dog at the end, and an afterword by a veterinarian that goes into why we grieve so hard for our animals, and Katz at least every now and then says it’s okay to mourn an animal. But then he goes off on rants that one should NEVER value that animal life over ANY human life. Hmmm… Wha?!? I know PLENTY of humans who aren’t worth dried spit, and I’ve known PLENTY of animals who’ve loved me despite my plethora of faults. You want to know what true forgiveness looks like? Look at an animal, and for gosh sake: Don’t expect it from a human being.
Okay, puff puff puff! Obviously this book didn’t bring me the comfort I was hoping for, or the sense that there was someone out there (Katz) who might have words of wisdom, words of solace. And I think Tom Stechschulte’s narration added to the pain. He brought each sly inflection, each tirade, each sneer to life with his on the spot performance. I guess there was no way to pretty it up.
So ANYWAY! If you’re currently in a grief cycle, I suggest avoiding Going Home like the plague. It’s baffling, and in your emotional state, you might find it flat out offensive. Leave listening to it for a later time when you can be detached. Who knows? Maybe later I’ll find it interesting.
I don’t, however, intend to listen to it again to find out. Maybe for that final dog’s letter, which made my husband cry. But everything else?
Slaughterhouses, anyone?
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