AND FINALLY
Loss and a lesson for life
WE buried my daughter’s puppy at last on a golden evening, when the trees around our walled garden rustled, wind chimes tinkled and a pigeon cooed the monotonously melancholy call that always reminds me of things longedfor then lost. ‘If only’ it cries.
The hole R dug seemed so small. We took puppy from her box, parted the pale green towel, stroked her gently and told her how sorry we are. Then we wrapped her soft chestnut beauty and laid her in the ground, with her little head facing towards the house.
A ceremony acknowledges that something has happened and must be respected, and so I read from my book on pet bereavement. Here’s a little bit:
‘These animals force the human ego to realise that after birth and before death there is this shining thing called life.
‘It is paw prints through wet grass in a summer dawn...It is the dancing of a feather or leaf that must be chased...To find meaning within the life and death of one beloved creature is to put your hand out of the window and wait patiently for a miracle to alight...Yes, I am contented to name the energy ‘soul’ — and its sheer, shimmering power makes the thought of any afterlife redundant. For everything is now.’
Please understand — these thoughts transcend one small animal. Compassion is not a pie to be sliced up, dished out, used up. It is a powerful muscle which grows the more it’s flexed. The pity of it reaches out to the universe.
R filled in the soil. Nearby in that garden are the ashes of my beloved Maltese — who had 14 wonderful years in contrast to the puppy’s few excited months.
There is also a slate memorial to my son Tom, stillborn in 1975, carved with my own words: ‘Love’s stillness forever moves.’
It means this: our loves and losses are at once permanent (still) and yet always changing — moving hearts to find new meanings in our individual destinies, and leading us towards new starts.
Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or email bel.mooney@ dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.