A Tear for Jessie

I remember carrying my dog, Jessica, run down by some anonymous motorist, through the woods behind our house. I laid her on the ground, stood back and waited for tears to come. I don't know how long I stood there, but nary a drop ever came. I could see the reality of the situation so clearly - on many levels and within many time frames. I was open, even inviting an overwhelming sadness to engulf me. I stared at her stiffening body as the breeze pushed the leaves and the water stroked the rocks. It was a chilly late winters day, so the woods appeared just as lifeless as she did. I took the shovel, dug a shallow grave along side the small creek and laid her, now an it, into the earth. I paused again, feeling broken – not because my heart was shattered, but because it wasn't. I wasn't in denial, nor was I being brave or acting strong. I covered her corpse, sighed, toted the shovel back to my Corvair and drove the short distance back to our hippie shack, dry eyed.

I was 18 and already well steeped in philosophical thought. I didn't fantasize that I knew it all, but I felt like I had a better understanding of how things “really” were than most of humanity. In fact, it still seems like I had a pretty good grasp of things, intellectually. The few scraps of writing from that time, that survived through my vagabond days, still resonate with my current understanding and teachings. But the world doesn't exist in my mind – except for in my mind.

Now that I tear up at every little thing, I understand that my heart wasn't broken and that my mind was seeing quite correctly. There was no point in crying for my loss or for that of the planet. Death happens every second. If she, or any of us, had a soul, it was the smallest of bumps along a road of eternal evolution. But had I paused to consider the importance of that one short life, seen the joy and love and friendship that she wouldn't get to live, things may have felt different. I seem to live much of my life now, in other peoples shoes or paws or wings. The big picture is still there, but now it walks hand in hand with the personal pictures.

The Buddha said that “Life is suffering”. I found that such a harsh and cold judgment. How could one so enlightened hold such a gloomy view? Now I see. It's not an intellectual, philosophical statement, it's a factual one. Every living being experiences loss, setbacks and hardship. Certainly, we can learn to brush it off, to sit above the situation and see it as a wee thing in the grand scheme. I still give little credence to my own “suffering”, for the most part. But these days, I empathize deeply with the rest of creation, on a regular basis.

Today, I shed a tear for Jessie.