It’s okay if you’re shuddering. We are.
When she and her husband first purchased and installed the pet-cremation retort, Linda Desrosier “got in and laid down” in it, because she wanted to see what it felt like. “I will be cremated here,” she says — and she’s already received special permission from the state to allow that to happen (her license allows only pet cremations).
There’s a reason why Desrosier takes her rather creepy profession so seriously, and it’s not just a robust obsession with dogs. When she “introduces me” to Fluke and Fiona (another dog companion who passed away in May), whose ashes sit in polished wooden boxes, along with their favorite toys, collars, and biscuits, I get it: These cremains are more than the physical remnants of Desrosier’s dogs — they represent her connection to them, their bond.
Pets can provide a sense of self, grounding, and comfort, clinical psychologist Sue Ellen Brown wrote in a 2004 Society & Animals journal article. “Persons may interpret their cat’s behaviors as conveying love and feel love in return. The person’s internal, subjective experience of love is the important element, not whether the cat’s behavior really means love. That cat may be the only selfobject [outside entity that helps a person define him or herself] in the person’s world who brings out this internal experience of love. This experience of love can be more real to the person than any other experience of love that person has known with persons, animals, or experiences.”
If you’re wondering how seriously to take this pet-human connection idea, consider this — last year, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly entered the pet-health market; the company announced that it would begin producing animal medications, as well as fund a $250,000 endowment to the nearby Center for the Human-Animal Bond at the Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine for the study of “physiologic, psychologic, and sociologic aspects of the human-pet bond.” If this industry giant is getting in on the game, it’s not just crazy cat ladies who believe in the power of pets. And more and more animals can expect entries to the afterlife like Mojo's.
Deirdre Fulton can be reached atdfulton@phx.com.
