My dog Jenny came to the end of the line last week. She was over 15, deaf, and scarcely able to move, but never lost her dignity in any respect; she was a model of how to grow old with grace. Like every good Border collie she was always on the job, even as she gave in to the tides of age, still keeping constant look out over her people. When she couldn’t move, she barked to be moved into a position where she could survey her charges. Towards the end one friend, a Buddhist nun, came to say goodbye. Bending over Jenny, she said in a matter-of-fact way, “Goodbye, Jenny. Come back good.” We know she will.
Later a neighbor stopped by to leave a copy of Eugene O’Neill’s famous homage to his dog Blemie, “The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog.” Jenny, I know, would have liked these sentiments. So in her honor, I will quote a bit of it:
…I ask my Master and Mistress to remember me always, but not to grieve for me too long. In my life I have tried to be a comfort to them in time of sorrow, and a reason for added joy in their happiness…I feel life is taunting me with having over-lingered my welcome. It is time I said good-bye, before I become too sick a burden on myself and on those who love me. It will be sorrow to leave them, but not a sorrow to die. Dogs do not fear death as men do. We accept it as part of life, not as something alien and terrible which destroys life…
One last request I earnestly make. I have heard my Mistress say, “When Blemie dies we must never have another dog. I love him so much I could never love another one.” Now I would ask her, for love of me, to have another. It would be a poor tribute to my memory never to have a dog again. What I would like to feel is that, having once had me in the family, now she cannot live without a dog! I have never had a narrow jealous spirit. I have always held that most dogs are good (and one cat, the black one I have permitted to share the living room rug during the evenings, whose affection I have tolerated in a kindly spirit, and in rare sentimental moods, even reciprocated a trifle)…
One last word of farewell, Dear Master and Mistress. Whenever you visit my grave, say to yourselves with regret but also with happiness in your hearts at the remembrance of my long happy life with you: “Here lies one who loved us and whom we loved.” No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you, and not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail.
