Grateful for Life, Grateful for Death

We buried my dog, Bodhi, yesterday.

He’d been by my side for the past 18 years. Every day of my relationship with my wife. Every day of our children’s lives.

This morning, I awoke before dawn and sat in the stillness. Usually, I can’t do this for long before Bodhi starts to make sweet little grunting sounds as he starts to wake up. Or he just grunts in his sleep, like old dogs do.

But this morning, just silence. Deep silence. And darkness.

Half of his last meal sits, unfinished, in his bowl.

With tears in my eyes, I wonder, Who am I without him?

Another question arises. Am I without him?

My love for Bodhi warms my heart. And gratitude for every precious moment we had together.

Yes, gratitude. A deep breath enters my body, relaxing my shoulders.

Who am I without him?

Grateful.

Am I truly without him?

It’s a mystery.

All I know is that I feel relieved of the burden of being anything anything other than grateful.

My gratitude for Bodhi’s life includes gratitude for his death. I can’t hold just one part of this fluid, dynamic, constantly-shifting dance of creation and destruction.

My preference for life and aversion to death soften in this gratitude for the totality that includes both.

This is love. The all-embracing way of love.

The fact that it hurts is an essential aspect of the realness.

Birth hurts—and the miracle of life emerges.

Death is the mirror image of birth.

We don’t get one without the other. We can’t pick and choose. Can we embrace both?

We can. The open heart is capable of miracles like this. Now.

And so, I’m moved to share Bodhi’s death poem with you.

Plant my body by the old oak tree –
     the tree your children love to climb
     where laughter blends with birdsong
     where I can easily merge back into the infinite
Return these frail bones
     these worn-out muscles
     these adored aggregates of a separate-seeming self
     back to their earthy womb of pure stardust
Allow my death
     to awaken wild reverence for life
     as form dissolves back to the formless
Sit beneath these gentle strong branches
      above roots plunging deep
      into this ancestral soil
Offer this moment
     this breath
     this heartbeat
     back to Source
Allow grief to tenderize you
     awaken you
     to the cyclical enormity
    of birth-life-death-birth-life-death-birth...
Feel in your warm, throbbing heart
     the fleeting
     irreversible
     impermanent
     nature of the universe
     happening now
Mysterious
Nameless
Unborn
Imperishable
Welcome to your own, personal Bodhi Tree –
     here
     for you
     for me
     for all beings
     for a while

Speaking of the dance of destruction and creation, we’re having a friend over today. She’s bringing her newborn. His name is Bodhi.