Inside the Hidden World of Christian Patriarchy: One Woman’s Journey to Freedom
Andrea Mills’ aftermath, in contrast, reveals what Levings’s memoir makes possible: the right to reframe, to reflect, to decide what matters and what it means, not only in what’s shared but what’s withheld. Andrea’s dog, Knuckles, died just two months after she did. At fifteen, deaf, and likely suffering from canine dementia, the vet recommended he be put to sleep. Her husband Tom, who had vlogged so many other moments, did not stay in the room. Knuckles’s passing was a gap: a moment Tom could not document, could not make visible. He shared updates afterward, perhaps trying to give the pain of Knuckles’s death purpose for viewers. The questions that linger in my mind are ones, I think, Andrea might have answered if she’d had the chance. Was he frightened, surrounded by strangers? Did anyone sit with him, offer a kind smile and soft touch as the sedative took hold? Did anyone lift their hand, thumb out, pinky and pointer raised, and press it to his patchy fur, unaware that, to Knuckles, love was always Andrea?
