[Oe List ...] A short meditation on new life

[Jann McGuire]

Thank you, David.

In memory of my many 4-legged friends over the years,

Jann McGuire
Arroyo Grande, CA

On Tue, Mar 4, 2025 at 9:10 AM ML Jones via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
wrote:

> Thank you for your kind sharing. Reminds me of Skippy and Lady who were
> dear friends, Mary Laura
>
> Mary Laura Jones
> Grants Resource Development Consultant
> 53599 Pulver Road
> Three Rivers, MI 49093
> cell: 773 636-2022
> mljones2022 at gmail.com
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 4, 2025 at 10:42 AM Linda and Milan Hamilton via OE <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>> They worm their way into our hearts and leave a hole when they leave us.
>> Milan
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Mar 3, 2025, at 10:24 PM, PAUL SCHRIJNEN via OE <
>> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you David,
>>
>> The tears and wonder of grief.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> On 4 Mar 2025, at 00:01, David Dunn via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>> *Tiny Animals*
>>
>>
>>
>> I bring four Animal Crackers with me into the study, pick one up and say
>> softly to BuDa-behind-my-eye, “BuDa, this is a tiny hippopotamus.” I offer
>> it carefully to the air. I pick up another Animal Cracker and speak
>> confidentially to BuDa-in-my-memory as if revealing a secret between us,
>> “BuDa, this is a tiny rhinoceros.” I love watching his keen anticipation.
>>
>> He takes each Animal Cracker gently into his mouth and chews it with
>> relish. He knows that I usually offer just two; he hesitates briefly, just
>> in case there is a third, then lies down at my feet. By now I am heart
>> broken and my tears well up and out and down my cheek.
>>
>> Yet I give thanks to the Creator of dogs and humans, especially brindle
>> Boxers who remind me of the Boxer named Gretchen of my childhood, who died
>> chasing a car when I was in fourth grade. She disappeared one day without a
>> trace. It was the only time I remember my mother crying. I don't remember
>> crying, but perhaps my heart has remembered the deep, unattended sadness.
>>
>> I have wanted to own a Boxer for many years; unfinished heart work might
>> have been calling for attention. So I give thanks to the Creator of human
>> emotions, tear glands, the 14,000-year evolution of the human-dog
>> partnership, and BuDa, our barely-young-adult Boxer who died of a broken
>> heart—a congenital heart disease that left him weak and breathless—on
>> January 11, 2025. Sadly, sometimes evolution veers off on mortal tangents.
>> It’s a known thing among Boxers.
>>
>> Thankfully, evolution’s main mission is to find paths that allow all that
>> is to change: for lava to become land, for green leaves to create oxygen,
>> for animals to survive the chaos of evolving and for human beings, the
>> ability to see when it’s time to evolve. When the familiar beloved dies, a
>> broken heart can open to something like light that changes us. Plants
>> reflexively turn toward the light. For human beings, darkness reveals a
>> grand paradox: darkness becomes light and light reveals the way of being
>> made new.
>>
>> I give thanks to the Holy Mysterious Creator for the efficacy of this
>> tiny ritual that has brought tears to my eyes, memories to my mind, life
>> and depth to my heart and the conviction that I can become the one I have
>> always yearned to be.
>>
>>
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> —
>>
>> David Dunn
>> Creative Companion/Personal Publishing
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 720-314-5991
>> dmdunn1 at gmail.com
>> Skype: dmirror
>>
>>
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