In “Talking Dog” the narrator’s sister deals with death by speaking to animals.
My sister told our family this when she came back to the dinner table from which my mother and I had watched her kneeling in the snowy garden, crouched beside the large shaggy white dog, her ear against its mouth.”
After that it was just a matter of time till she met the dog with a message. And we all knew who it was that my sister was waiting to hear from. Her boyfriend, Jimmy Kowalchuk, had just been killed in Vietnam.”
It’s really interesting how the author gives the character this strange coping mechanism. The author uses a lot of detail to describe Jimmy, and it seems that his strange obsession with testing his limits is what makes the sister so drawn to him. It also seems to be what makes the narrator herself so drawn to him. It could also be the way that he makes them feel safe and taken care of, as they, it appears, didn’t feel before him and won’t feel after him.
When Jimmy dies, the girls are both hurt and deeply affected. The sister talks to dogs and distances herself from everyone, while the narrator keeps her grieving and hurt to herself. When the father dies, nothing really changes for any of the characters except the sister, who gets married. The death of the sister reveals that she blames herself for her father even getting sick.
No matter how much my father told us about his disease, my sister believed that somehow she had caused it, and she had this pet iguana that was the only one she could tell.”
This story really shows how grieving varies depending on the person and how death can make people change and do things that they never thought they would.