2020: Good Riddance or Good Learning for People and Pets

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Last night, I saw a TV ad for CNN’s New Year’s Eve celebration to be hosted by news anchor, Anderson Cooper, and Bravo media king, Andy Cohen.

The ad featured Cooper walking on a stage toward four gold mylar balloons spelling out 2020, the soon-to-be-departed year. Cooper pulled out a pin and stuck the final zero. The limp zero crumpled to the ground. Cohen then leapt in to replace the flaccid zero with an inflated number one and foretold — in a helium-induced, pre-pubescent voice — “I’ve got a very good feeling about this one.”

That deflating zero captured my feeling about this year of social and political extremes. “Good riddance!” was my initial reaction.

Tempting as it may be to cling to this feeling, I believe it gives short shrift to one of life’s teaching moments; an opportunity to remember how we acted collectively (and how I reacted individually) to change from without and from within.

It would be so easy for me to take those thoughtless parts of myself I displayed over the past twelve months and summarily dismiss their effects as the collateral damage of living. I could file them in a neat, little drawer called “remote memory.” My front would be preserved, but I would not be the better for it.

The crescendo played out in the weeks before our move to Portland, Oregon. Nerves frayed under the pressures of downsizing and the prospect of redefining myself in retirement, my patience was short, my tone often gruff. Under the fallout, my wife cringed and our dog trembled. Not okay.

There’s no way I could turn the page without making amends to both of them and disarming my hair-trigger. The only way I could do that was to drill down to tap the well of fear festering beneath my exterior. Only then did I remember how many times I’d faced the unknown before and emerged a more seasoned (and happy) human being. It was only through the steadfast love and company of my wife and dog that this was accomplished.

2020 was a year of mixed news in the animal rescue world. We lost Tony Hsieh, founder and CEO of Zappos clothing line, who partnered with Best Friends animal Society (BFAS) in 2015 to create Home for the Pawlidays, an annual pet adoption push to kick off Black Friday. BFAS also announced that the U.S. has taken huge strides toward reaching its U.S. no-kill shelter goal by 2025. A shelter receives a designation of “no-kill” when it saves at least 90% of its animals.

How could we carry the legacy of responsible pet parenting forward without holding both the happy and the sad milestones in our minds and hearts.

One moment in time or even a single year cannot define us. But we cannot dismiss those parts of ourselves we don’t like any more than we can wish the events of this past year away. It all stays with us.

What matters is how we carry our whole selves forward as people and pet parents.