Recently, 25-year-old Kimberly Ledoux’s mom Janice has become completely obsessed with the fact that the family dog is dying.
“It seems like past a certain age, moms adore casually talking about depressing, tragic things,” said Kimberly. “But she never even really cared for our dog, Bessie. Now suddenly it’s like the only thing on her mind these days is the fact that Bessie is on her way out.”
Janice posts about the dog’s ongoing illness and lack of mobility on Facebook, responding to every comment and promising that “ol’ girl is very loved.”
Janice’s obsession, Kimberly explained, has had negative effects on their 14-year-old dog’s quality of life.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Bessie,” said Kimberly. “But she’s miserable being alive, and we should’ve put her to sleep weeks ago. My mom is prolonging Bessie’s suffering so that she can talk about manually expressing her anal glands and gain sympathy from her coworkers.”
“It’s almost psychotic,” she added.
Kimberly’s mom doesn’t see the issue.
“I’m mourning the loss of our family dog,” said Janice. “People grieve in different ways. My method just happens to be sharing my grief regularly in public and online.”
For Kimberly, it’s all a bit much.
“I just want my dog to be at peace,” Kimberly said. “My mom’s obsession with the fact that Bessie is dying is not only super unsettling, it’s preventing Bessie from being able to just….die.”
“I wish she’d go back to her obsession with calling me every single time someone I went to high school with gets married or sharing obituaries of people she barely knows,” she added. “Those were somehow less weird than this?”
