I think bravery has to be something you can choose.
I’ve never had a problem, I think, doing a lot of things that some people would interpret as acts of bravery, but the experiences aren’t what I’d call that. I feel like I can do anything if i have to. But I have to have to.
One time I was dove hunting with my dad and some others from my area. Sometimes you don’t kill the doves when you shoot them, not all the way. So you need to pluck the head off. It’s weird how they come off. It’s like they’re not even attached. But I didn’t really know that because I never did that, I just had my dad do it.
This time though, there was a kid, who was younger than me, and when we walked out to get the doves we shot, he held his up to me and mentioned that it wasn’t dead. I looked at it and agreed. But my dad was way over on the other side of the field. This needed to be handled now. He wasn’t stupid; he knew how to take an alive thing and make it dead. He was just averse to the visceral act of doing it directly, with one’s hands, to a helpless being. Hunting wasn’t like that in most ways. It’s impersonal. The death is distanced from you. You don’t touch the animal until the killing part has happened already.
So I took it from him and plucked its head off.
I distinctly remember that moment because of how the decision making process instantly transpired in my brain. I wasn’t brave. I still didn’t want to do it. I wasn’t fearless, that was still there. I just did it because I had to do it, and when you have to do something you can’t not do it, that’s what it means to have to do something.
It was something that happened to me.
Bravery is not possible when there is no agency.
I think of a 30-ton Boulder being dropped on me, my body turning into a liquid that shoots out in all direction.
Someone says “that’s so brave, I could never do that.”
Another asks what, exactly, is brave.
They respond: “turning to liquid like that. It would be so painful, and also I can’t stand the sight of blood. I know people say that you surprise yourself, exceed your supposed limits in crises, but still, I couldn’t imagine bringing myself to that.”
But of course I did no such thing. It was just… physics.
I saw a thread online once where some vet tech was pleading with people to be with their pets at times of euthanasia. ‘They are so scared, in a strange room, being held down. I try to comfort them but they need you.’
I didn’t really like the condemning tone of the post. Some people can’t handle that. Trauma is bad anywhere but a pet’s moment of trauma before death is probably preferable to a lasting trauma to the owner, I guess.
Today I held Brass while her heart stopped. I could feel it beating through her chest in my fingers. It was fast… but she is a cat so maybe it wasn’t fast for her? I can’t remember feeling her heartbeat before. Shouldn’t I have some memory of that? From all the times she’s laid down on top of me? I can’t bring any into my mind. And then I couldn’t feel it anymore.
I didn’t overcome anything to do that. I didn’t resist the urge to run away or to sob too violently for the vet to inject her. I just did what I had to do, because doing anything else wasn’t an actual option, in the same way that flying through the ceiling like superman wasnt an option. This was just something that happened to me and I had no say in it.
And it fucking sucked. And I feel bad for other people who this happens to. And me. And I just feel really bad right now and hate how everywhere I look there’s no cat.