pet connection

Stories about pet cemeteries being built over come up fairly regularly, and they never fail to make me sad. See, people assume when they pay to bury a pet that the cemetery will be there forever, as most human cemeteries are. But pretty much anyone can open a pet cemetery, and sell it when the offer is good enough. That’s happening now in South Florida, with the Pet Paradise Ranch:

After years of neglect, the long-standing pet cemetery on Purdy Lane is officially going under. Condos will be going up in the next year, and the owner would prefer they not be built on top of anyone’s beloved pet.

“They can just come and dig, absolutely,” says property owner Imtiaz Ahmed.

Ahmed didn’t run the cemetery — he says he didn’t even know it was there when he bought the 5-acre lot in suburban West Palm Beach in 2002.

But one walk through the weed-infested grounds reveals dozens of headstones.

“I will miss your warm body next to mine when I sleep,” says one trampled plaque.

“I love you as you loved me,” says another.

Vernoll “Betty” Burdick’s love for animals was vast. She moved to Purdy Lane when it was just a dirt trail, working as a groomer and running a pet boarding house. Her husband ran the only pet ambulance service at the time.

According to a plaque on the grounds, people started burying their pets there in 1950.

The rest of the story is here. I do know more than one person who had pets buried on his or her own property, and had the graves emptied when they moved. I can certainly understand not wanting to leave a private graveyard behind.

I never did anything with my pets after they died, for many year and many pets. I figured the part of them I cared about was gone from their bodies, so what did it matter what happened to those bodies? And then one of the most special dogs I ever had died of heart failure, at almost 16. I couldn’t bear it, so I arranged for private cremation.

And then I couldn’t go pick up the ashes. I asked a friend, and she picked them up and put them next to the ashes of her husband. (”It’s OK,” she said. “Cliff loved dogs.”) Andy stayed there for a couple of months, and then I brought his mortal remains home. It felt … right.

So when Ben died, I had a private cremation for him, too. He and Andy are sitting just a couple yards from where I’m typing this, the boxes holding their ashes concealed behind a large picture.

I still don’t understand why I changed my mind on this issue, but I know having their remains in my office comforts me, somehow.