Dangermond.org

I’ve mourned my dogs and realized I was also mourning who I was with my dogs. Arlene’s death took its toll of me, and I imagined I would never bond with another animal after her.

Recently, I ran into a old friend at the new Whole Foods – he had just lost his third dog and we spoke about how hard it is for us, those they leave behind. And he referred me to a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Spring and Fall” (1880)- a musing on mortality:

To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

It is Rachel I miss – the one Arlene shared her life with.

Years ago, I danced with a woman, a colleague of mine who was a few years older than me, and she said, “After turning 50, I regretted not adopting a child.” Although I have regrets, I don’t have that one. You make a choice in life to keep your heart open, to keep letting people and creatures come in, and some of them form bonds forged in steel and some are inked in kryptonite – but the thing is, you don’t know, until you have already opened the door, who or what awaits.

And still I open.

Today, Stella came to join the Dangermond family. My friend said puppies, and I said no; my friend sent me a photo of the puppies, and I said, hmmmm. The mother had one blue and one brown eye like my Arlene; the puppy I spotted had the coloring of both Samm and Arlene:

Six puppies born to a Catahoula with a brown and a blue eye, six different looking puppies, and I spotted Stella right away – the foster parent joked that she looked like a Bernese Mountain Dog, but she looked more like Samm and Arlene when they were puppies:

I said I would go see her and decide.

The decision was made before I arrived. Today we welcome Stella into the Spirit House with open arms and heart. Heidi was visiting so she got to meet her, mouth her, sniff her and lick her as well.

Not everyone loves babies and puppies – but I do – babies and puppies bring uncertainty into our lives and remind us once again that we have the profound capacity to love.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2014 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.