There’s so much we gain when we choose to love a dog–barking at the delivery people, chew bones hidden under the cushions, muddy pawprints, and a disinclination to go out in the dark alone, especially when it’s cold or raining. We also gain unconditional love from a deeply generous heart that can teach us so much if we’re paying attention.
Dogs teach us how to love, with a single minded devotion and a desire for our companionship that is hard for any person to match. When you have a good dog in your life, you have many opportunities to practice being a better human.
When we meet them for the first time, we look into their eyes to see if they’re the one who will become a treasured member of our family. They know before we do, but they wait for us to catch up.
They begin teaching us right away, but they let us think we are teaching them.
As they grow older, they let us practice being patient with little accidents, taking slower walks, and washing their favorite blanket before bedtime.
And at the end of their lives, they ask us to practice being brave as they show us how to say goodbye.
We lost our beautiful G.G. two weeks ago, She was once one of a trio of Bichons in our lives: Ellie, Tuffy and G.G. were the precious heartbeats at our feet, as Edith Wharton used to say about her little dogs. G.G., our Gingham Girl named for the gingham ribbon tied around her neck when we first met her, was the youngest of the three, and the last to leave us.
Saying goodbye does not improve with practice, unlike other lessons from our dogs.
A dear friend, Dr. Bob Goldstein from Earth Animal in Westport, Connecticut, sent me this poem when G.G. passed. I want to share it with you.
“We who choose to surround ourselves with lives
even more temporary than our own
live within a fragile circle easily and often breached.
“Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we still would live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only certain immortality
never fully understanding the necessary plan.”
(From “The Once Again Prince”/Separate Lifetimes by Irving Townsend)
Rest in Peace. G. G.
We remember what you taught us.
G.G.’s marker is in the pathway to Nantucket Animal Hospital.