I walk across a pasture in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains. The grass has been mowed, maybe a week or more ago, for it is thick under my feet. The yellowed cuttings lie across the green grass below. Fescue, mostly, with some clover and bermuda mixed in.
It's about one o'clock in the afternoon. A warm sun heats my arms, my face, as I climb up a hill, unlock a gate, then make my way carefully down the hill on the other side of the fence. In spite of a light breeze, I begin to perspire. And as I walk, I ponder the elusiveness of "now." It's here for a moment, and then it's gone. I anticipate, then it's now, then it's past. Step after step. At the bottom of the hill, I turn left and begin walking across the pasture toward a stand of trees that mark the distant fenceline. I can see a spot of freshly turned red clay. It's dry, thanks to a long drought in this part of the state.
When I reach the fresh red clay, I stop. I put down the tote bag I've been carrying. It contains a small leatherbound book and a box of Kleenex.
There are three separate parts to this bare ground. One is hard packed. It's been here awhile. One is fresher. But the one closest to me is new, fresh crumbling earth. The tears roll down my face. I have an insane urge to dig in the clay with my hands until I find what is underneath it. But I don't.
Cinder, my beloved companion on life's trail for the last twenty years, almost twenty-one, is buried here, in this freshly turned North Georgia red clay. And a part of me is buried with him. A huge chunk of who I am is gone. The elusiveness of now. Where did those twenty years go?
And how many hours did I spend brushing that Georgia red clay out of his coat and shampooing it off him when brushes failed? He did so love to roll in it!
I am glad I brought him back here to spend his last years, and I am glad that he is buried here, where he spent so much of his life. He never grazed in this pasture, but he would have enjoyed it. It's a lovely spot, a place where a human being wouldn't mind being buried. He lies next to Sweet Talk, a mare from the farm who died about seven weeks before he did, and Chrissy, a fifty-year-old pony who died around Easter a year ago.
Someone, probably Sweet Talk's owner, laid a stone on top of her grave with words engraved on it that went something like this: "If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I'd go right up to heaven, and bring you back again." Sweet Talk's owner couldn't bear to come out when the vet came to put her down. I was in New Orleans when Cinder died, but I don't think I could have watched it either.
I pulled out the slim black leather book. "I lift up my eyes to the hills -- from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Psalm 121.
Accept, O Lord, I humbly pray, a foal of your own herd, a horse of your own barn, a creature of your own creation.
1 comment:
It surprises me how less complicated grief for animals is than grief for people. I don't have time to work out something profound on the point -- a couple more lifetimes might be required for that -- but gratitude for the affection one receives from a companion animal certainly seems simple and clear. It's something I've never second guessed. Thanks for providing so tangible a setting.
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