Death always seems so far away, until it’s scheduled for tomorrow.
I write this knowing I have a little over 24 hours left with my first dog, child, and son, whom I call a son because I love him in the way he taught me how to love.
His life depended entirely on mine; and now, I have come to understand, mine has ferociously depended on his.
My fifteen-year journey with bunk started in January 2010:
We tried so hard to eat healthy:
But a staggering amount of donuts and pie had other plans:
When those were in short supply, we discovered substitutes:
Bunk made friends easily:
And at some point along the way morphed into a lion:
Life is neither all misery nor joy, but bittersweet; all joys and miseries contain the one within the other. It is always just a matter of time.
But my God, how much delight bunk summoned into existence for so many along the way —like a furball magician who never grew tired of performing the same damn trick over and over again: fetching a stick but instead of a stick it was your heart he brought back to you, no matter where you last left it.
I just looked over at him now, laying on his blanket outside, four feet away. He raised his head to look back at me; such a simple gesture and my tears are back— salty, full of grief and profound heartbusting gratitude.
It also feels like a tremendous relief to know I can cry like this, to know I can love another creature so fucking much.
But lest you think bunk was merely a good-time friend, he was my companion through much human heartache and performed his duty as ring-bearer with consummate professionalism:
There are quasi-infinite more pictures I can share but am wary of overwhelming with sentimentality. What all of the pictures seem to capture, in one way or another, is that life —even fifteen years of it — is but a fleeting moment and is ours not because we deserve it but because we live in a field of grace that is beyond all the words I know.
Grace, lucky for us, is simple.
Run through the fields:
Don’t wait:
Catch morning sunlight:
Let yourself be carried by others:
Know where you come from:
Take in a view:
Don’t be afraid to get wet:
Learn to rest in each moment:
The wind is now blowing bunk’s tail’s fur. I’m an absolute slobbering mess, so let this be what it is.
A Note
by Wislawa Szymborksa
Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on sand,
rise on wings;
to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;
to tell pain
from everything it’s not;
to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes;
An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held with the lamp switched off;
and if only once
to stumble on a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,
mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important
Oh god, my heart is breaking with you. That kind of pain is from pure and true love. I'm glad you and Bunk found each other and walked with each other - and ran, and swam, and ate, and cried, and loved - so hard for so long. There is nothing like that kind of friendship. Dogs today, dogs tomorrow, and dogs forever. Sending you and Circe oceans of mētta, and well-wishing Bunk every step of the way through the bardo. I'll ask Falkor to look out for him.
So sorry to hear about this. You made such a beautiful tribute.