The skies are grey, there is a bit of wind, and the leaves in the trees are rustling. The weather suits my mood.

 

I dug a grave for my dog today. 

 

Well, my husband began it this morning before anyone else was awake. I went out thinking I would break the ground, and found instead a shared chore. It is right beside the grave of the previous home owners’s dog Squeak, with all kinds of shades of green above and surrounding.

He is not gone yet, my dog. The grave isn’t finished yet. But he will be gone tomorrow night, and the grave will have to be finished.

 

He is not my best friend, this dog. He is not my soul mate.

 

He is just a dog. 

 

 

Just a dog. Named Chip. 

 

He came 10 years ago from my Dad. Just after our first German Shepherd had been put to sleep. He came with all the wildness of a country dog. He peed on the oldest boys’ hockey bag almost weekly. It took awhile for him to figure out what we wanted from him on a leash.

 

 

He ate a bag of bread from the top of the refrigerator, and 24 mini chocolate chip muffins from the kitchen table with the kids were snoozing on the couch.

 

He got into the trash more times than I can remember.

 

He’s just a dog.

 

I dug a grave for my dog today.

 

It was a strange experience. My back is hurting. There was strain in the effort. And there was something releasing in the process. I cried as I dug the grave today. The rain, the grey skies, the leaves rustling…they all helped. You cannot dig a grave quickly. Well, maybe you can, but I cannot. And there is, in that slowness, the space for mourning.

 

He’s just a dog, though. 

 

 

But he has the softest ears you’ve ever felt. Like velvet. And the scruff of his neck is thick and soft. He’s let me cry a few tears in that scruff, and more than a few this week.

 

He is always happy to see us. Always happy to go on a walk. Always greets the husband with barks of exuberance that begin as soon as he hears the car coming down the street.

 

 

I dug his grave today.

 

It’s almost ready. He’ll be gone tomorrow night. His tumor came in November, but the cancer spread quickly in just the last few weeks. You can hear it in his breathing. We’re giving him pizza and hamburgers and chocolate chip muffins and bread.

 

He’s still happy to see us.

But, he’s just a dog. A dog named Chip 

 

Everyone should have such a dog. Consistent. Present. Faithful.

 

I dug a grave for my dog today. 

 

He’s just a dog. 

 

I have one more night of him putting his muzzle in my hand to walk down the hall to bed. And waiting when I have to go back to the kitchen three times to fill waters for kids and find my book. Looking out the bedroom door and waiting to lie down until I’m really, for real, ready to go to bed. Then staying by the bed until I get up.

 

Everyone should have such a dog…and a love that teaches your heart to break. We all need the lessons in how to mourn, because there will be deeper and bigger mournings. He’s just a dog, and he’s teaching me in this.

 

 

And I will just leave you with this, from, of course, G.K. Chesterton:

 

But a man does belong to his dog, in another but an equally real sense with that in which the dog belongs to him. The two bonds of obedience and responsibility vary very much with the dogs and the men; but they are both bonds. In other words, a man does not merely love a dog; as he might (in a mystical moment) love any sparrow that perched on his windowsill or any rabbit that ran across his path. A man likes a dog; and that is a serious matter.

– A Miscellany of Men (1912)