Land of Little Rain

14.5.09

One Last Road Trip

Sam's last road trip, originally uploaded by Maureen Shaughnessy

March 1989 - May 2009

his spirit has gone to the Light ...

Sam went with us to the high desert in Utah ... we knew he was very close to dying yet we could not bear to leave him, so we took him to see our teacher, Brant Secunda, one last time. Brant gave Sam a blessing on Wednesday at midnight. Sam's spirit left his body at 10:00 Thursday morning. As he breathed his last breaths, I lay on the floor next to Sam, my face just inches away from his eyes: he looked at me til the very end. Tim had his hand on Sam's heart and we both told him over and over that it was okay to leave ... that he had been the best pup ever and that we loved him more than anything.

the last thing he knew was the sound of our voices and the touch of our hands stroking his head, gently scratching behind his good ear and touching his heart.

Sam died peacefully and naturally
surrounded by our love...

I miss him so much.

My heart has a hole now.

Yet I know he is in a good place.

I took this last photo of Sam sleeping on the back seat of our car on the way down to Zion, Utah. His face was so white!

Go to the Light, Sam, go to the Light like an arrow

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I will write more later when I can.

17.4.09

spring melancholy

spring melancholy, originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

spring melancholy

my muse ...

she hides in a forest
under layers of
leaves,
leftover
from winter

not so sure
she wants
to emerge,
yet
compelled

to awaken
by the bright
singing of
sparrow
and siskin

and roots
sucking water
expounding on
spring's
insufferable
cheerfulness

©2009 MaureenShaughnessy

3.4.09

Photo Friday: Grandmother

1.8.08

Binding ourselves to the world

Little Things

Sharon Olds

After she's gone to camp, in the early
evening I clear Liddy's breakfast dishes
from the rosewood table, and find a small
crystallized pool of maple syrup, the
grains standing there, round, in the night, I
rub it with my fingertip
as if I could read it, this raised dot of
amber sugar, and this time
when I think of my father, I wonder why
I think of my father, of the beautiful blood-red
glass in his hand, or his black hair gleaming like a
broken-open coal. I think I learned to
love the little things about him
because of all the big things
I could not love, no one could, it would be wrong to.
So when I fix on this tiny image of resin
or sweep together with the heel of my hand a
pile of my son's sunburn peels like

insect wings, where I peeled his back the night before camp,

I am doing something I learned early to do, I am

paying attention to small beauties,

whatever I have -- as if it were our duty to

find things to love, to bind ourselves to this world.