When my first German shepherd with which my husband and I shared out lives passed away unexpectedly of bloat at age 6, we were devastated. He was not a high class show dog with lots of fancy titles. Although in our eyes he was the winner of them all. He was a rescue with whom we did not get to spend near enough time. When we have the luck to share our lives with that truly one of a kind dog, time is enough enough it seems. When he passed, we had his body cremated, and it reminded me of a poem I taught my high school students when they tragically lost a classmate in a car accident. I am including part of it here hoping to maybe bring you comfort as only the words of a song or poem sometimes can. The words helped me remember that even though life is cruelly short, it is our love that binds us with our loved ones and brings us back them like the ends of a mapper’s compass (the one you remember using in math class to draw perfect circles). Our love keeps us connected like the two ends of a compass, and one day those ends will be reunited again. Dogs and their humans have such a special bond that can never be broken. just as hammered gold may become flattened and stretched far from its beginning, it remains connected. That bond shares another similarity with gold — it is indeed precious. I hope these immortal words by John Donne bring just a bit of peace.
With love and prayers,
Kristin Murphy and Alta Tollhaus Zyla
From A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
Thank you so much Kristen for sharing your story and the poem.
THank you for this!