First I had a general epiphany about how nostalgia-fueled decisions to go back to the way things were rarely go well. "Going back" to places, people, whatever... never goes as planned. Perhaps that's the true moral of Pet Sematary. It came up in some conversation with Big A. And then suddenly because we'd talked about Scout's health, he was trying to get me to promise that I would never clone Scout. An option I'd never considered before but seemed tempting. But Big A rightly made the point that Scout is his own person and cloning disrespects that etc. OK? OK.
I was telling the kids this over breakfast some day this week, and I don't know if they appreciated their parents' deep thoughts. But they immediately started a tally of who in the family would put people in the pet sematary. Apparently neither human kid would. According to them, I totally would. And their dad--well... apparently he has a strong sense of medical ethics and wouldn't. But... he'd still probably put me in the pet sematary because he's so attached. And then, they riffed, when pet-semataried mom starts stabbing people and stuff, he'd be all patient explaining things like "Puppy, remember we talked about not stabbing people?"
For a conversation that included so many deaths, including my own, that last line in its authenticity still makes me chuckle out loud.
