Nostalgic Ruffie
She's just my dog.
She is my other eyes that can see above the clouds;
My other ears that hear above the winds.
She is the part of me that can reach out into the seas.
She has told me a thousand times over that I am her reason for being.
By the way she rests against my leg.
By the way she thumps her tail at my smallest smile.
By the way she shows her hurt when I leave without taking her.
When I am wrong, she is delighted to forgive.
When I am angry, she clowns to make me smile.
When I am happy, she is joy abound.
When I am a fool, She ignores it.
When I succeed, she brags.
Without her, I am only another person.
With her, I am all powerful.
She has promised to wait for me...whenever...
In case I need her; and I expect I will
As I always have.
She is my dog.
Author Gene Hill
Words can't reflect Ginger or "Ninger" as she sometimes is called, any better then the poem. She was a stray found when she was one to two years old, trying to eat scraps of food falling from a dumpster. Bribing her with gingersnap cookies to get her in the car and to a veterinarian where over a hundred ticks were removed, is reflected in her name yet also describes her beautiful ginger color.
When finally home, she would not leave the heels of my feet for the next month, most of the time managing to be so close she would step on the back of my shoes. I learned flip flops were not good shoes to wear if I didn't want to be tripped or completely step out of my shoe.
Having aged in years, with more then a little senility and arthritis along with other ailments that slowed her down, I had an idea of what she must have been like in that puppy stage missed. Her devotion however, never wavered. To compensate for the lack of attention to her job of following me, when she managed the longer sleep of the aged, Ginger decided it was best to sleep while guarding the closed door leading to another room laying her body in the way of opening it and making it impossible leave without waking her. If an open doorway, she laid across the space which then became a feat of careful planning in order to step over her.
Ginger stayed with me as long as she could. After seventeen beautiful years her body just wouldn't allow any more time and she had to leave. She was my friend, someone that has always been there by my side, a loyal companion and forever a joy.
I'll miss her.
author:
Straywillow..for if the dog be well remembered,
if sometimes she leaps through your dreams actual as in life,
eyes kindling, laughing, begging, it matter not where that dog sleeps.
On a hill where the wind is unrebuked, and the trees are roaring,
or beside a stream she knew in puppy hood,
or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze.
It is one to a dog and all one to you,
and nothing is gained and nothing lost if memory lives.
But there is one best place to bury a dog.....
if you bury her in this spot she will come to you when you call,
come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death,
and down the well remembered path
and to your side again.
And though you may call a dozen living dogs to heel,
they shall not growl at her or resent her coming,
for she belongs there.
People may scoff at you,
who see no lightest blade of grass bent by her footfall,
who hear no whimper,
people who have never really had a dog.
Smile at them,
for you shall know something that is hidden from them,
the one best place to bury a good dog
is in the heart of her master.
Author Ben Lampman
profile by Athene, photo and story by Straywillow
