New Year’s Homage

Written by Pam on December 31, 2014

I always like to start the New Year paying tribute to those furry friends that we loved and lost. Below are meaningful pieces of poetry that I wanted to share with you.  We have all experienced the loss of a beloved dog – who continues to hold that special place in our heart – I hold these poems sacred as I did my dogs who have left HGT :*)

The Best Dog of All – Author Unknown

Loving and loyal,
A friend through and through,
How in the world can I
live life without you?

I’ve known you since you
Were just a scrappy little pup.
Fighting to survive,
And you never gave up.

I watched you grow into a
beautiful canine friend.
Back in those days,
I could not imagine this end.

But now it is all over,
And you’re truly gone.
Somehow I’ll find a way
To try to carry on.

Perhaps one day I’ll find
A new puppy who,
Will become my dear friend,
But she’ll never replace you.

I’ll keep your little photo
hung up on my wall,
And I’ll always remember you
As the very best dog of all.

You Did Me a Kindness – Author Unknown

When my legs grew too weak to carry me,
And my tired eyes could no longer see,
When it pained me to struggle for each new breath,
When my heart beat weaker, and I drew closer to death,
You did me the kindness of letting me go.
You didn’t make me hang on when I was suffering so.
I promise I don’t think that you loved me any less,
And I love you all the more for your selflessness.
You freed my spirit from its body so wracked with pain,
And let me run the fields of Heaven, where I’m sure we’ll meet again.

A Dog Died By: Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973)

Translated By Alfred Yankauer

My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I’ll join him right there,
but now he’s gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I’ll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I’ll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he’d keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea’s movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean’s spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don’t now and never did lie to each other.
So now he’s gone and I buried him,
and that’s all there is to it.

Until We Meet in Heaven – Author Unknown

All good things
Must come to an end,
And today I said goodbye
To my very best friend.

The house will seem so still,
Now that he’s gone.
There’ll be no one to wake me up
To go outside at dawn.

His bowls will sit there empty,
But I’ll leave them in their place.
No more will water drip down
From his thirsty, furry face.

—–

Remember Life is a journey and LOVE is what makes that journey worthwhile… Happy New Year! Enjoy your KokoBos!  Love, Pam

Posted Under: Adult labradors, Golden Retrievers

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