Lassie, June Lockhart, and a Lesson I Learned Too Late

"When I read recently that June Lockhart had died, well into her nineties, an unexpected wince ran through me. The sharpness of that reaction surprised me for just a second, but then I thought of Lassie-not just the television show, but my Lassie. And suddenly I was 10 years old again, sprawled on the living-room carpet, rolling around with my first pet, an exuberant and impossibly soft collie who shared the name of the heroine on TV."

"My mother-whose severe OCD had roots I would not fully understand for another 60 years-found ticks in Lassie's bedding. What followed was a crisis of catastrophic proportions for Lassie. For me, it was the beginning of something far worse. The fumigators came. The bedding was hauled away. And Lassie herself was banished to a barren side yard behind our house in El Cajon, California."

I loved my collie Lassie as a child and spent simple, golden moments playing with her and watching the television show. My mother, whose severe OCD later became clearer, found ticks in Lassie's bedding; fumigation followed and the bedding was removed. Lassie was banished to a barren side yard behind the house in El Cajon, with decomposed granite, blistering heat, no shade, and no comfort. Her coat became matted and her paws chafed. I coped by avoiding the pain and pretending it did not exist. That avoidance pattern persisted into adulthood, shaping work and relationships; the needed response is staying present and turning toward pain instead of away.

Read at Psychology Today