Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Philosophy Lessons - The Relativity of Truth

My dog has just died. I loved him. It makes me sad.

This statement is not true: my dog was not my dog. He was my cousin's dog. He came to live with my family when my cousin was very small. I was sleeping that week in the same bedroom with my little cousin to keep her company, since her mother was travelling for work and she was not used to sleep alone in her room. The first day the dog was with us he cried the whole night, missing his mom. The only way I could manage to make the puppy to keep quiet and not to wake up my little cousin was to give him my hand to chew on. That made him happy. Eventually, he fell asleep. My hand was scratched for weeks. That first night created a strong bond between us, or at least I thought it did. Even when I did not name him or owned him or took care of him, I started calling him my dog.

The statement, though, is still not true. He did not just die. He died last Monday, two days ago, but I just heard the news. My aunt just told me via chat. I knew he was sick, so it came as no surprise. He was also old, for a dog. I left Havana when he was 2 years old. He died when he was 12. I guess the distance in time and space gives me the license to round up the facts.

Like it gives me the license to claim I loved him - yet another falseness in the statement - even when I left him behind ten years ago. Surely I can ignore the two days it took for the news to travel to me. Surely I can ignore the forty-eight hours I chose to ignore he was sick, knowing he might die, and not to inquire for his health.

I guess I will always live two days behind. Death news will take two days to reach me. I will always be two days too busy to get them, to make time to listen to them. My loved ones will always live two extra days in my live. I will always have the luxury to neglect them for two full extra days.

But, nevertheless, the statement still stands false. His death does not make me sad. The pain of love, like any other pain, can be learnt to be lived with. I left my dog ten years ago. I have had ten years to learn how to forget him, or at least how to live without him. I had ten years to practice this day. And I did. Now I won't miss his cold nose on my arm asking for scraps at the end of the dinner. I won't miss his smile when I called him good dog. I won't miss his soft snoring noises under the sofa. I won't miss his lazy body blocking the exit to the balcony while he bathes in the sun. I won't miss him waking me up in the mornings, breathing on my face, licking my hand. I won't miss him. I have learnt how to not to. I had to. He became part of the Pandora box I rather not open. He is part of the box of photos I rather keep at the top of the closet, safe but tucked away. He is the photo at the bottom, that got so faded that one cannot distinguish what it portraits anymore. Now he is only a memory. His death does not make me sad. It makes me frightened.

My past is a stack of yellowing Polaroids, slowly but surely fading. Slowly the horizon of my live creeps in, making my life shorter, erasing my past like the dark quiet waves erase, at night, the sand castles that children leave behind on the beach. One day my memory will fade too, with the stress of the now, and the decay that comes with old age and the chemical corrosion of life preserving medication. One day the memory of my dog will be no more, not even in my mind. One day I will be sure I never had a dog with a cold nose that chew on my hand to fall asleep. One day I will be sure I never had a dog and he will not be there anymore to prove me wrong.

So, while I still have the memories, I'll stand true by my lie, validated by relativism: my dog, indeed, just died. I did love him. And it makes me sad.