For Rosie, An Ode

For my dear Sweet Rosie, An Ode:

I planted these tulips shortly after your diagnosis in the fall. I wanted to do something my future Self would thank me for later. They are now blooming, vibrant, and right on time.

Yesterday afternoon, April 26, 2021, you passed peacefully in my arms while I chanted Aad Guray Nameh, the Gayatri, and Mukti mantras softly into your ear, in your favorite sunbathing spot under the budding maple tree, sun filtering through its branches. A full moon was coming, a Supermoon. I asked you to try to send me a sign when you safely arrived at the Bridge. A few moments later, a white butterfly appeared. Then another. And another. Your transition was as beautiful as your life on this Earth. The most beautiful death one could ask for.

My dear: you were the absolute love of my life.

We were each other’s beloveds. And in previous lifetimes, this I know for certain. And I think you did too. Fewer statements I speak with such clarity and conviction. You came back in a canine form, but you were much more than a pet. You weren’t really a pet.

A dog’s love is special, They say. A dog’s loyalty, unmatched. All the things.

But perhaps They didn’t know the honor to know you.

To know you was to know Divinity. You were the embodiment of all I or anyone else could ever hope to be: love, purity, piety. My girl, you were all Kapha: earth and water, heavy, slow, stable, patient, supple. You were love, peace, and devotion, manifest. The unbearably soft place to land when I needed the reminder that the ground will always hold me. That you would always hold me.

You have held my broken, shattered heart, in all of its tiny little jagged pieces. You welcomed them all, unflinchingly. You paid the price dearly.

Our last night together, you spoke and I listened. I held my hand over your fragile heart, and you held your paw on mine. We stayed there awhile. We both knew.

You invited me in, closer, my heart beating directly into yours and yours, mine. I’d like to think in that embrace, I gave you an ounce of your strength back that you gave me all these years, just to make it one more glorious day. And it was, beautiful. I will carry that with me always, my love. We were connected that way. My heart dog.

To know you was to know joy, unadorned, in its childlike wonder and naive simplicity. You will always be one of my greatest teachers. You taught me many things, chief among them: presence, and to be patient. That every moment is far more precious than the one before, and the next one that is yet to be. A lesson I never really understood until these past few months, or weeks, really. Time stopped.

They said you had the most serious of all heart conditions on top of the most serious of all heart conditions. That you could leave suddenly at any possible moment. What a lesson, what a metaphor for us all.

My dearest lovebug, please forgive my understandable fear — to live with that degree of absolute uncertainty required absolute presence. Which required me to release 40+ years of habits and conditioning overnight. Forgive me if I slipped back into the “what-ifs” and for the terrorizing visualizations about all possible and (frankly) highly likely scenarios. There were many. These past few weeks I learned the word Presence. You continually anchored me back to this very moment. Again and again. And again. Despite my years of study of the ancient wisdoms, more than any book I’ve read or training I’ve taken, you taught me Presence is all we ever really have.

My love, please forgive me for the times I ever took you for granted. For not fully bathing in your beautiful, guttural howls, or delighted squeals whenever I walked through the door. For believing you would always be by my side, my humble servant.
A life without you was not a part of my vivid imagination.

And yet.

We all know better. We want to believe otherwise. But that’s not the law of the universe, nor should it ever be. I grieve hard because I loved you hard. That’s how it works. My tears are of sadness, despair, agony, and the deepest gratitude.
Grief is love expressed, my dear.

Though perhaps more than anything, you taught me to listen to the silence, to cut through the noise, to get to the heart of it all. The only thing that matters, and ever really will: LOVE.
You taught me how to love, how to be loved, and that I am love. That’s all you ever were: love, dressed in a deliciously squishy, soft, low-to-the-ground suit of all-shades-of-earthen-brown fur.

I keep looking for you resting your head on the couch pillow; nested within the sheets of the bed; sleeping on my yoga mat which you claimed as your own; watching the backyard from the sunroom. I call your name and no response. Silence. It is agony.

You are now part of the Other Place, the space and ether that surround and are made of all things.

So I will look for you in the stars, in the sun, in the birds, in the flowers, in the trees, in the grasses, in the wind, in the water, in the rain, in the earth, in the heart that beats inside this chest. And I will look for you when my time comes.

And so my promise to you, my dear sweet girl, is this: I will live my life in honor of yours, to love my life in honor of yours. To live from my heart, to know that’s the wisdom place. To live each moment, as it is, and to bring myself back to it when I notice I veer. Such is the human condition.
To live a peaceful life of joy, wonder, beauty, presence, love. To live fully and completely from my heart, in honor of yours.

Sweet dreams, my love.
Dream of ducks, dream of geese, dream of squirrels.
Dream of all of your friends, near and far.
Dream of wide, open fields, with so many smells, and so much room to run.

Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya.

To the love of my life, Rosie “Rosario Roast Beef Rosencrantz”

Nov 12, 2012—April 26, 2021

Love, Mama