(Post 198 of 263)

I’m very fortunate that Mérida has at least one pet funeral home, Cielo Animal, which is right near my house (I pass it on the way to and from Pilates). Their motto is “por un adíos digno” — for a dignified goodbye. Most of my other fur babies did not have dignified goodbyes — Herman, Peggy, and Samuel went out with the trash as that was what I was told to do by the city in which they died. Tabitha was group cremated. I’m grateful I was able to bury Neelix at Haven. For Bonita, I had a choice of burying her in the garden here or having her cremated. After bundling her up and putting her in the freezer, I just could not handle her one more time. So unless I found someone to bury her for me, that option was eliminated. Frankly, I loved the idea of handing her over to a funeral home, grateful that I had that option.

Being so emotionally drained on Monday the last thing I wanted was to make any difficult calls, but I also knew I could not bear to have B in my freezer one minute longer than necessary. I reached Cielo Animal and a lovely man named Pepe answered. I explained what had happened and that I wanted a price and information for pickup of B’s body, cremation, and an urn. He was so kind, like really kind, not “I’m being paid to be kind” kind. He spoke slowly and enunciated well, explaining the pricing of the two services (cremation cost is based on weight), that he’d send me a brochure with the urn options, and that they’d be over as soon as possible to pick her up.

Early afternoon, he pulled up with a colleague. I told them where she was and said I did not want to get too close. They peered into the freezer, went back to the truck, and came back with a dog-sized body bag. 😭 They gently zipped her into it, told me they’d be back, and took her out to the truck. There, they weighed her. 14kg. Too skinny, but not her lowest weight. I always had to tell myself there are dogs, like whippets, that are naturally very lean. Her vet wasn’t concerned with her weight when he saw her on Sunday.

We did the paperwork when they came back.

I know this is not inexpensive to the average Mexican, but when I think that I paid more than that to have Tabitha put down and couldn’t even collect her remains, it feels like a bargain. They only had one urn I liked, a plain wooden box, and it happened to be the least expensive option. I appreciated that at no time did Pepe try to upsell me anything, like a funeral. I actually might have done that if I’d had more people here who knew and loved her, but most those people are in Canada right now.

This afternoon, another lovely man delivered her back to me.

“Thank you for your companionship. We will always remember you.”

I don’t know if I’ll keep her ashes in the house with me forever or if I’ll end up scattering them around her domain. But I have the choice, and for that I am so grateful.