Requiem: Melba 1984-2002

Will she be reincarnated? Will she appear in my life in a new form? These are such enjoyable fantasies and the truth is I have no idea. I know that all the rituals and mythology surrounding death exist to serve the needs of the living, to convince us that we have done enough on behalf of the victim and society's expectations have been met. They further exist to convince us that the beloved soul is not really lost to us, just on an extended kind of vacation. What is the actual experience of the victim we do not know despite the frauds on television and the fanatics with their reports of near-death experiences.

I buried her in the back yard and decorated a rather brown and forlorn spot with prayer flags and ropes of bells hung from the willow tree. I placed ashes of her best friend, the beagle who died 7 years ago, about her.

As I dug and then as she lay in the shallow grave, wrapped in a quilt, her head exposed because I could not bring myself to bury her head, I began to wonder if she was really dead. She had cheated death so many times before. She had been sleeping like the dead for years, ever since a series of strokes. But until this morning, every time I approached her, or picked her up, an eye would open. She had a wild stare because she was nearly blind, and a look of astonishment at waking up and seeing that not only was she still on this plane of existence, but she was being carried around.

Maybe today's state was a deeper slumber. Maybe she's out there right now wishing she had the strength to struggle free from the quilt and the layer of sod on top of her.

Of course it's not true. She will not have a resurrection. Her body was already cold this morning. By the time I buried her at 1:30 in the afternoon, she was stiff. The body had that heavy dense feeling that bodies give off, of fluids coagulating.

She was a rare spirit, and I will profile her for you in more detail in future. But not tonight. Tonight there is a heaviness despite the sage smudging which made an impressive difference, despite the prayers on her behalf and the graveside ceremony.

Dogs deserve to have their unsung lives celebrated, and hers will be in

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