Each loss makes me feel grateful for the irreplaceable ones I love

By David McElroy · July 15, 2021

I’ve paid more attention to Merlin this week than I have in a long time. I hadn’t been ignoring him before. He hasn’t done anything to require more attention. But I’ve been painfully aware that he won’t be with me forever.

I’m sitting in my bedroom floor Thursday night and Merlin is sleeping on the bed just inches from me. Lucy is in the floor next to me on my other side. (Thomas is off doing his own thing in the office.)

Molly’s death last Friday had the same effect on me that all of my cat and dog deaths have had. The pain of losing one of them reminds me to love and appreciate the ones I still have — while I still can.

Merlin has been with me for about 14 years. (I don’t remember for sure.) He was already several years old when I brought him in from the streets. When I put those together, I realize that my wise old man might not be with me too much longer — and it makes me want to appreciate whatever time he has left with me.

If you want to love and appreciate something you love — or someone you love — just remember that you can lose this cherished person or thing. There comes a time when it will be too late.

One of the strangest things about human life is that we tend to lose appreciation for the ones we need the most. The people and things we love the most come to seem routine, as though they’ll always be there.

If you’ve ever lost something or someone, you might know what I mean. Even though you might have said you loved someone or cared about a thing before, its loss can leave a hole far bigger than you might have expected.

You suddenly realize what you’ve lost. You feel guilty for not valuing this person or thing more dearly before the sudden loss. And the hole is your life is bigger than other people can understand. The loss is almost too much for you to bear.

We take members of our family for granted. We can take a loving spouse for granted. And we can even take for granted that someone who loves us will always be there, even if we don’t choose to invest in that person.

I’ve lost six dogs and maybe 15 cats over the years. They all hurt in some ways, but some are worse than others.

In 2008, I lost a German shepherd mix named Maggie who was an amazing dog. I was very close to her and she was an important part of my life. Then one night, with no warning, she couldn’t stand. After a long and sleepless night at an emergency animal clinic, she died the next morning during surgery.

She had had cancer and I’d never had any idea. And as much as I had already loved her and cherished my time with her, I realized as soon as she was gone that I would have given anything for a few more days or weeks with her. Every moment that I’d chosen to waste on frivolous things suddenly seemed to have been a terrible choice — because I thought of the time I could have spent with Maggie instead.

It can be the same with people. You can think someone will always be with you — or that you’ll always have the choice of making that person a part of your life — and then the person can suddenly be gone.

Merlin isn’t as strong and muscular as he once was. He’s skinnier. His fur isn’t as healthy as it once was. And Molly’s death last week has me paranoid about losing him, so I’m spending more time with him and giving him more attention — which he might or might not want anyway. (He’s a cat, after all.)

If there’s someone you love, remember that you might very well lose him or her. Be grateful for the time you have and make sure that person understands that he or she is genuinely loved.

The time will come when it will be too late to say, “I love you.” It will be too late to let someone know how very much he or she means to you.

So do something about it. Right now. Before it’s too late.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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