Words --- Comment

     When Cindy approached and asked me if I would write a short poem to comfort a friend whose dog had died, I did not hesitate to say yes. I like hacking poetry, and I had coughed up a couple of less-than-metric verses in the last couple of months.  So I clutched at my motto, “How hard can it be?”, and plunged in.

     It hurt.

     A lot.

     Not an agonizing, how-can-I-possibly-stand-it screaming hurt, but more of a deep pit of tears ache kind of hurt.  Because with pets, it hurts even more to lose them. They give us their heart and soul, as it were, only to die all too soon.

     Years ago, a few months after having lost my two remaining brothers, five months apart, we lost our only cat to feline leukemia. As I stood over her in the vet’s office, while they administered the injection that ended her life, the tears just rolled to down my face.  I felt bad --- not only for her, but also for my brothers, and for the fact that it wasn’t her fault. We can be the best person we are capable of being, and it still ends in death. For everyone.

     So I wrote “Requiem to Sadie” in memory of a dog I never knew. But now, every time I read it, it reminds me of my wife, Judy.  We were together for 40 years, but now she’s gone.