"It is easy to see the unconditional love that oozes naturally from a loyal dog. If only humans could dare love one another as a dog loves their owner; once we brought unconditional love back into our personal, professional community and family lives, we would automatically begin the journey of restoring wholeness and happiness to our worldly adventure and experience.
One year ago today, our rough collie, Lady, died. The day she died, heaven left a hole in my heart and it would have been so easy to have made the world my enemy had I not become a more loving being because of her. Even one year on from her passing, I am always talking to her as though she is still here. When I first learned I had a terminal illness four years ago, it was as though she understood. Even then, her constant presence in our home and by my side was a mark of her understanding as she walked beside me in the shadow of my affliction, ready to kiss me with her compassionate tongue whenever I looked her way.
And though one year has passed since that sad day, my grief was never the absence of your love, but the loss of your tangible presence. Slowly I am coming to realise, Lady, that I don't have to carry you in my every thought so as not to forget you. I can put all memory of you gently down in the heather of the wild moorland of Haworth that Sheila daily walked you through, to rest there peacefully until I pass again. Indeed, I know you will never leave me or me you, for when I die, part of my ashes will be mingled in memory of you at your grave marker on the moor. So, you see, Lady, I no longer live in vain although bereft of you, for as long as the world turns on an axis of God's love and the earth is green with new wood, and the birds still sing in sweet song, you shall be with me along the final road.
Those we love and temporally lose to life as we generally know it, remain always connected by heartstrings beyond the wide divide between man and beast, even into infinity. It took just one beat of my heart to find you, an hour to appreciate your specialness and a day to love you, but not even a full lifetime could ever be long enough to forget you. The loved will never die, for love will prove their immortality.
I once came across a beautiful piece of prose written by someone 'unknown,' and yet, although the author of the words remains forever anonymous, their thought could be the thought of everyone who ever loved and lost:
'If tears could build a stairway,
And memories a lane,
I’d walk right up to Heaven
And bring you home again.'
William Forde: September 19th, 2017.