It’s Thursday in Australia, and since this blog is supposed to have an international flavor, I’ve decided to quit defering to the Western Hemisphere “dateism.” 😉
I’m dedicating this thread to puppies (and other species) past. Especially the one’s whose passing broke our hearts – as was the case with Ursula, pictured as a pup below.
What I wrote at her passing:
Requiem for a Bitch
At 3:45pm, February 19, 2001, Ursula — dog, friend and companion extraordinaire passed into the great mystery, surrounded by those who loved and cared or her. Hers was a conscientiously humane crossing–a time chosen. One that hopefully took her to the end of her ability to enjoy life, but not beyond.
As she sat stoically in the back of our Suburban, trusting — as always — that we would do what was needful for her, with her tenuous hold on life falling rapidly and blissfully away from her, the sky let loose the rain it had harbored all day — heavenly tears, to echo our own. And if we are, any of us, more than mere flesh, it was then that her spirit rose, running full out with her tail high and her face wearing the laughing grin that she did in better and younger days.
When everything divine was female — suckling, nurturing, harsh but loving, then the great Goddess sometimes took the form of a bitch. Like the she-wolf who founded Rome, millennium before the patriarchal pretenders Romulus and Remus stole her mantel and turned the world upside down.
Ursula was a Bitch, a Goddess triumphant. Supremely arrogant, and loving, and unquestionably right. She protected our animals, and us, with a fierceness that never wavered, even when we mistakenly asked her to do otherwise. She tolerated and loved us, and all humans for the imperfect beings we are, and yet she loved us perfectly.
As only a dog could, she loved to work. That we were a registered therapy dog team was a fiction; she did all of the work, bearing with equanimity the ear pulls and hair tugs of small or age-worn hands. Children in crisis shelters, whose lives had been torn asunder, sank blissfully, primal, into her unwavering confidence, love, and ability to abide. With the elderly bed-ridden, she was gentle to a degree that utterly belied her size and strength. When she stood up to place her front feet on a hospital bed, she balanced her immense frame with acrobatic grace, as she placed her feet–one at a time–to avoid fragile arms and IV tubes. Those who witnessed this feat had never seen the like of it, and may never yet again.
I love her as I have loved no other animal. That her life was cut short by a brain tumor, is a cruelty that I can only abide by honoring all she tried to teach me. I owe her that — to take into myself her spirit, and carry on her life of unconditional love and acceptance, and to guard fearlessly, as she did, all who are entrusted to my care.
Eulogy for the Living
I wanted to thank everyone who expressed her kind concern for us in the wake of Ursula’s death.
We buried her Tuesday, on a south facing hill, in the center of a natural stone circle. Several ancient Oaks edge the site, a beautiful blood red Manzanita — a survivor of the fire two years ago — holds the slope above her. In this, the rainy season, water in a nearby cataract cleft plashes and races, making it’s way to the pond, joining its timeless voice to that of the reverberating frog chorus.
The spot is isolated and serene, but not so far from the road that she can’t bark at the cars if she’s so inclined.
We dug her grave with surprising ease through layers rock and clay, and the rich red soil that made California the Promised Land for my agrarian grandparents and so many others like them. The sky was drizzly, but a clear band of light gave relief along the horizon.
After about an hour of digging, we got her from the yard and brought her as close as possible in the truck, carried her the last 50 feet, and finally lowered her into ground — still wearing the harness (with her name tag) that she had worn since her surgery in July, which we had used to give her a steadying hand these last few month. Roses from the Valentine’s bouquet went with her. The loose dirt resisted shoveling, so we scrabbled, dog-like, with our hands to replace the ground above her. The grassy loam that I had carefully peeled up and set aside went back on top.
When I visited her today, I had a hard time picking out the spot, so thoroughly had we, and the rains, erased our trespass beneath the mantel of our Mother.
Einstein said, “time exists so that everything doesn’t happen all at once.” But he was wrong, everything does happen all at once. Yesterday, today and tomorrow all hit me at once. My grief for my dog is my grief for my father is my grief for ultimate loss of my one true love that will shatter time and life itself. This awareness is too much, too boundless, and I flee from it, knowing that if I run fast enough, eventually I will be able to re-erect my boundaries — as I always do. But now, in this eternal moment, I touch the endless with a hesitant hand — one no longer made of flesh, but of stars.
So sorry for your loss. I had to put down a cat once (cancer) and it was the most wrenching thing in the world. I will never forget that last drive to the vet, and how it had to be my own arms that delivered her there. I felt so guilty, though it was the right thing to do.
To Ursula the Great, now free:
Then Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.”
And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
– Khalil Gibran
Thank you.
Gibran’s The Prophet is one of my favorite books of prose poems.
Who now lives in Florida and is spoiled rotten and has been renamed Gypsy. He was so casual, I loved that so much about him……he was very comfortable in his own skin. Sorry for your loss.
He’s a lovely fellow. And yes, he has a wonderful casualness written all over him.
As a working dog, with a flock of goats to protect, Ursula was never “casual.” But I don’t think I’ve ever met a more intelligent animal that was so thoroughly comfortable and confident in her own skin – and I definately needed her example of such “self-containment” at that time in my life.
It always gets me right in the heart when others talk of their dogs. I am such a dog person.
This is Puck, who was named for the mischief-making sprite in Midsummer Night’s Dream and worked hard to live up to his impish ways. She also died in 2001 but she continues to hang out in her favorite chair (her ashes, anyway) where, as my husband points out, not only does she behave perfectly, she doesn’t even shed. But I like to think it’s her spirit inspiring the current dogs whenever one of them gets into something they ought not.
Puck in a quiet mood
Puck is a wonderful name for a dog.
I must admit I have a particular fond spot for the “trouble makers” of the animal world. Their’s is the realization that rules always need to be tested (and retested), lest the TPTB get complacent, capricious or arbitrary.
Her trouble-making was very creative — my favorite was when we decided to put whole-house air conditioning in. The installers came out, put out everything they would need for installing, set the concrete pad, and left for the day. When they arrived the next day, we found that she had taken the 1000 ft spool of insulated electrical wire (it was on one of the big wooden ones) and unrolled the entire thing by taking the end and running into the woods with it.
I was too much of a gypsy for most of my life to have dogs. Two of them came into my life–in company with a remarkable woman–some years back.
The Golden Retriver-Lab mix had to be put down. Bebop (or, as he once told me he prefered to be called, Il Boppino) had gotten old, though he still chased tennis balls with the passion of a young dog. And then one morning he couldn’t get up. There’s more to the story, but the details don’t matter.
We buried his ashes and several tennis balls in a high meadow in the Rockies. Sometimes it’s a bit tricky to find the spot, but I always do find it.
And, wandering over the property, I’ll invariably stumble over a tennis ball that he’d carried along on a walk, dropped in order to sniff something, and then forgotten to pick up.
Yes, mourning never really ends. It really never ends.
Thanks Denver, for sharing that little bit of Bebop’s story. Bird-dogs have the most amazing dedication to two things: their people; and their balls.
My current dog Luna, also a Pyrenean Mountain Dog like Ursula, was welped at the same time as a litter of Golden Retrivers were born to the same breeder. Thus, Luna spent as much time nursing off the Golden Retriver mom as she did nursing off her own mother.
Who knew the retriever instinct was in the milk?
None of my previous Pyrs gave a fig for fetching anything, had no interest in balls of any sort. Luna will fetch, and catch, most anything.
No, you never do stop missing anyone you truly loved, no matter what form they took.
is currently number one at http://www.puppywars.com.
That should be http://www.puppywar.com (without the “s”).
A picture every parent can appreciate – six hours of labor, 10 puppies, and one very haggard mother!
That is a terrific picture, the exemplar of a proud mama.
My favorite time of the fish viewing day is when the sunlight hits the tank.
The fish seem to like it as well.
And for you arty types: yes, that is an M.C Esher print behind the tank.
at this time may be Ella in Europe: An American Dog’s Adventures in Europe by Micahel Konik, Delacorte Press, 2005. Konik’s writing reflects the deep love and admiration he has for his lab mix who came to him by serendipity, qualified to be a therapy dog, and was “rewarded” by the author, when she turned 10, with a trip to Europe where thery’re more civilized in their attitudes about Man’s Best Friend.
About six months ago we had to put down one of our rabbits, Oscar, due to an infection that was destroying his lower jaw. He was only two years old.
He was a real lap bunny, and very fond of humans. He was also my partner’s first real pet as an adult. It took us a long time to find a proper “replacement.” We weren’t even sure that Albert would want another rabbit in his house. But Albert was and is happy to have another “snuggle bunny.”
Tuesday was Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, and winter has roared in with a chill.
Albert (grey) and Henry’s (tan) response has been to snuggle as tight as possible.
I’m not sure who gets the better deal.