Death and dogs...

We have, or rather had, a strange neighbour. She was very small, almost a midget, about 4'2" or so. I saw her now and then walking her dog while I'm out walking Missy. There was a strange air about her- she looked quite lonely and unhappy, and probably had a tough life. At 5'10", even I am a midget in the Netherlands, where the average height is 6'2", so I imagine being that small wasn't easy. Her relatives also (I am told) were not very nice. I learned she died today. A few days ago, she fell down the narrow, spiraly stairs while walking her dog and wound up breaking her ankle and leg. She was taken to hospital but I was surprised to hear she would be there 6-8 weeks - I can barely get a Dutch doctor to write me a prescription or acknowledge I am sick, so I wonder how a broken ankle gets you 6 weeks in a hospital. There must be more to the story.

Anyhow, the doctors told her she needed some kind of surgery to insert a splint into her leg and she refused! Despite the possible risk of infection, she just didn't want to do it (and this isn't Sick-O land - it wouldn't cost her a penny, so it wasn't out financial worry). While this was going on, some of us dog-loving neighbours were discussing if one of us could take care of her poor dog while she was recovering, because it was home alone, and howling at night. I was about to take him in, but now the woman died and her dogwalker found a new permanent home for him. In a way, it's good I didn't take him in, as I learned he likes to eat money (and there must be a thousand euros worth of 5 or 10-cent coins strewn about the house on the floor, under the couch, etc.) He also likes to eat....well anything= mobile phones, ipods, cameras - what a materialistic appetite he must have. It seems very odd to me that this woman died from falling, but one of the neighbours thinks that she just gave up on life and let herself die. It all seemed to happen after she discovered that her dog was in good hands and would be cared for.

I wonder if we can just give up the will to live and die like that. Maybe the fall did some deeper damage that was undiscovered. It's all kind of creepy. Luckily some more Three Stooges DVDs arrived today, so I'll stick those on to alleviate the dark thoughts....