mjh's blog

Grief is the Price of Love

Lucky Dog died two years ago today, at 2:10pm. We miss him still, of course. I think we always will. He was a gift from the Universe and was with us during the very best times over 10 years.

It was a bad year for dogs close to home: Shy (Joe), Gracie (Earl & Marcia), and Kaboom (Paul) – all within a few blocks of here, all friends of Lucky. Survivors know that the end of our loved ones’ suffering is most important and outweighs our own pain in grief. Lucky suffered longer than, and more than, he should have, but we needed to be together as long as we could.

The Heaven of Animals

The meadow is his home now.
Up high in the mountains,
he lies in the shade
in a circle of trees
among the wild iris.

He yawns and stretches,
flips over
and rolls and rolls,
groaning in pleasure
in the tall sweet grass.

At any moment
he will sit up, alert,
ears sharp,
sniffing the air,
eyes intent on something
we can’t see
off under the trees.

His world is perfect now,
though I know he misses
the pats, the belly rubs,
the love in our voices:
lie down.
stay now.
good boy. mjh

7/7/2004

I wrote this five years before Lucky Dog died, remembering a beautiful spot the three of us discovered. And, imagining the inevitable, I sobbed. This supports my hope that “any horror could be faced / and become a poem.”

mjh’s blog — Lucky Dog (8/11/09)

Remembering My Dad

My Dad died 40 years ago, 5/28/71. I had just turned 16 and we had just moved into a new house, a quirky fixer-upper that would become Pine Street in many memories.

Dad came home early that day in a cab, not feeling well. He went upstairs while I threw a ball against the back of the house for Barnabus, our St Bernard, to catch. The ball got slobberier and muddier with each iteration and a Pollack of brown spots broadened on the white stucco between windows on the second story. Those blotches stayed there for years. I heard a thunderous crash and ran inside to find my Dad prone on the landing where the stairs turned. He was unconscious but breathing. I tried to rouse him, then ran for the phone. I didn’t know what to do, so I called my sister, Elizabeth. (This was before 911.) She called emergency rescue. I sat on the steps near my Dad, listening to his last breaths. Rescue arrived too late to save him.

I remember when my friend Dave Stilwell came over the next day I said, in effect, if things seem weird around here today, it’s cuz my Dad just died. My first obituary.

My Dad was a farmboy who grew up to be an engineer and work for a series of communications companies, ending with Comsat. Mom loved to say it was his job to figure out the cost of the phone call between the President and the astronauts who first landed on the moon. By hobby, he was an excellent carpenter. Just this weekend, I saw a bench around a tree whose hexagonal design reminded me of a far-sturdier version he build for Mom years earlier. To this day, when I concentrate on certain chores, I whistle tunelessly just like he did.

Dad was a military man, proud of his service in Asia as part of the Army Corps of Engineers. He was a Colonel in the Army Reserves at death. Military service played a huge role in his largely-self-destruction. I have no affection for the War Machine. We need to outgrow the waste and destruction we celebrate too often.

I don’t remember crying when Dad died. We were unhappy with each other then. However, many years later, I wrote a letter to Dad, imagining he had outlived Mom and lived in Montana with dogs and a pickup truck. Then, I cried.

She deserved a better end…

mjh joined his adopted family in a day-long farewell to Kathleen Crownover.

She deserved a better end…

Our friend, Kathleen Crownover, died 6/12/10. Eleven months ago, I wrote of her leaving her long-time home of Albuquerque as a kind of death. She proved my pronouncement foolish by prospering for months after the move. Unfortunately, for the past two months, she suffered more and more. One might wish for death, but the body clings to life, no matter how weak or pain-full.

I do not share the belief that Kathleen has gone to a better place. She’s gone. I would feel so much happier if I could think there is more to it than that. But, all can agree, she’s better off than she was a week ago.

Though her end may have a lesson for us all, her life surely did. Kathleen was extraordinarily kind, gracious, and generous. She had a good smile and a sweet chuckle. She was a good friend. We will think of her often.

One story: Kathleen took Merri to Paul’s Monterey Inn many times a year, simply as a friend as well as a thank you to Merri for her long, tireless work on KC’s behalf. I joined them many times in later years. We always had Mark Lyon’s as our superb waiter. One day, Kathleen, who was legally blind, albeit not completely, leaned over toward me in the dark restaurant and said, “Mark, your beard has turned white!” She was right, of course, but anyone who makes you laugh at a truth you’d rather ignore is a gift.

PS: Herewith, I start a new category on my blog: Obituaries. The entries will grow as the exits do.