I buried Lucy last evening.
I went out back in the afternoon, after I got home from town, and finished the sad task. The warm weather of the past week have finally eroded the layer of frozen soil to a mere inch or so. Once I broke through it, the earth underneath was easy to excavate. Under the top layer of roots and vegetation, the soil in our woods is fine and stone-free. I dug down about three feet until lifting the shovel became awkward, then lay on the ground and scooped earth out with a old metal bowl for another foot, digging into the past history of this place, back to the edges of the last Ice Age.
Then, exhausted and hot, I went inside, stripped off my dirty clothes, and lay down for an hour or so of sleep, surrounded by the house cats.
It was cooler when I woke up, the day turning into evening. I went around the house lighting incense, then put some appropriate music on the CD player downstairs and let the music and chanting drift out the open patio door into the back yard. It was time to lay Lucy to her final rest.
I place the sad parcel down in the smooth cavity I had made for her, leaning into the earth to place my hand against the familiar curve of her back one last time, to feel the resilient softness of her plush, immaculate coat through the thick vinyl. One last time. How many years, or centuries, would pass before that sad parcel saw the light of the sun again--if ever? I was consigning Lucy, like a time capsule, to the future. I hoped whatever hands might find her would be gentle ones.
It wrenched my heart but my grief had worn away to mere sadness and I was dry-eyed as I filled the grave.
As I straightened from my task, three cranes flew overhead in a two-one pattern, their mournful cries filling the silent spaces of the evening quiet.
These good-byes are inevitable. But that doesn't make them easy.
"To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come;
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome;
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be, and are;
To the place where God Himself was homeless,
And all men are at home."
--G. K. Chesterton
I went out back in the afternoon, after I got home from town, and finished the sad task. The warm weather of the past week have finally eroded the layer of frozen soil to a mere inch or so. Once I broke through it, the earth underneath was easy to excavate. Under the top layer of roots and vegetation, the soil in our woods is fine and stone-free. I dug down about three feet until lifting the shovel became awkward, then lay on the ground and scooped earth out with a old metal bowl for another foot, digging into the past history of this place, back to the edges of the last Ice Age.
Then, exhausted and hot, I went inside, stripped off my dirty clothes, and lay down for an hour or so of sleep, surrounded by the house cats.
It was cooler when I woke up, the day turning into evening. I went around the house lighting incense, then put some appropriate music on the CD player downstairs and let the music and chanting drift out the open patio door into the back yard. It was time to lay Lucy to her final rest.
I place the sad parcel down in the smooth cavity I had made for her, leaning into the earth to place my hand against the familiar curve of her back one last time, to feel the resilient softness of her plush, immaculate coat through the thick vinyl. One last time. How many years, or centuries, would pass before that sad parcel saw the light of the sun again--if ever? I was consigning Lucy, like a time capsule, to the future. I hoped whatever hands might find her would be gentle ones.
It wrenched my heart but my grief had worn away to mere sadness and I was dry-eyed as I filled the grave.
As I straightened from my task, three cranes flew overhead in a two-one pattern, their mournful cries filling the silent spaces of the evening quiet.
These good-byes are inevitable. But that doesn't make them easy.
"To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come;
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome;
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be, and are;
To the place where God Himself was homeless,
And all men are at home."
--G. K. Chesterton
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