Grieving the Loss of a Dog

We're All Just Walking Each Other Home

I've heard from so many friends of late grieving the loss of their beloved longtime companions. 

Dog-lovers, one and all, dread that final walk with their furry shadows knowing their time is near. A dog's only real fault is they're with us for too short a time.

No matter how much we try to prepare ourselves, when the time comes our hearts break with sorrow. But be assured, our dear doggy friends want us to move beyond our grief to love again.

So how do you comfort your broken heart? You sit in your grief as long as you need to--letting the warm memories wash over you, and then you open yourself to 'love what death can touch' once again.

Tis a Fearful Thing

‘Tis a fearful thing 
to love what death can touch.

A fearful thing 
to love, to hope, to dream, to be--to be,

And oh, to lose.

A thing for fools, this,

And a holy thing,

a holy thing

to love.

For your life has lived in me, 
your laugh once lifted me,

your word was gift to me.

To remember this brings painful joy. 
‘Tis a human thing, love, 
a holy thing, to love 
what death has touched.

Yehuda HaLevi 1075 – 1141

Come. Sit. Stay. Welcome.

When our family dog, Bumble or 'Bum', died someone gave us a copy of Eugene O'Neill's 'Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Loved Dog'. 

To a dog lover, who knows the tender care, love, and laughter our dogs bring us, this last will and testament will bring you tears and comfort.

Over the years our tattered photocopy disappeared, but I thought about it every time one of our beloved pals passed on. Years later, thanks to the internet, I found it and offer it here as a tribute to all great and beloved dogs that have graced our lives with their presence and quietly passed on.

The Last Will & Testament of an Extremely Loved Dog

by Eugene O'Neill

"I, Silverdene Emblem O'Neill (familiarly known to my family, friends & acquaintances as Blemie), because the burden of my years and infirmities is heavy upon me, and I realize the end of my life is near, do hereby bury my last will and testament in the mind of my Master. He will not know it is there until after I am dead. Then, remembering me in his loneliness, he will suddenly know of this testament, and I ask him to inscribe it as a memorial to me.

I have little in the way of material things to leave. Dogs are wiser than men. They do not set great store upon things. They do not waste their days hoarding property. They do not ruin their sleep worrying about how to keep the objects they have, and to obtain objects they have not.

There is nothing of value I have to bequeath except my love and my loyalty. These I leave to all those who have loved me, especially to my Master and Mistress, who I know will mourn me the most.

I ask my Master and my Mistress to remember me always, but not to grieve for me too long. In my life, I have tried to be a comfort to them in time of sorrow, and a reason for added joy in their happiness. It is painful for me to think that even in death I should cause them pain.

Let them remember that while no dog has ever had a happier life (and this I owe to their love and care for me), now that I have grown blind and deaf and lame, and even my sense of smell fails me so that a rabbit could be right under my nose and I might not know, my pride has sunk to a sick, bewildered humiliation.

I feel life is taunting me with having over lingered my welcome. It is time I said good-bye, before I become too sick a burden on myself and on those who love me.

It will be a sorrow to leave them, but not a sorrow to die. Dogs do not fear death as men do. We accept it as part of life, not as something alien and terrible which destroys life. What may come after death, who knows?

I would like to believe that there is a Paradise. Where one is always young and full-bladdered. Where all the day one dillies and dallies. Where each blissful hour is mealtime. Where in the long evenings there are a million fireplaces with logs forever burning, and one curls oneself up and blinks into the flames and nods and dreams, remembering the old brave days on earth and the love of one's Master and Mistress.

I am afraid that this is too much for even such a dog as I am to expect. But peace, at least, is certain. Peace and a long rest for my weary old heart and head and limbs, and eternal sleep in the earth I have loved so well.

Perhaps, after all, this is best.

One last request, I earnestly make. I have heard my Mistress say, "When Blemie dies we must never have another dog. I love him so much I could never love another one". Now I would ask her, for love of me, to have another. It would be a poor tribute to my memory never to have a dog again.

What I would like to feel is that, having once had me in the family, she cannot live without a dog!"

Come This Way. Welcome.

Goodbye Good Dog

Who's a Good Dog? 

YOU!

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

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