MOJAVE MULESKINNERS

A Memorial @2007

Once very long ago when the world was only five years old I lost a very good friend. His behavioral pattern had become ingrained in my memory and I wept. Nothing my mother could say took away the thought that I would never see or hear or play with my friend again. My friend was a small black and white dog. It was my very first dog and I suppose he wasn’t really mine, but he had come to stay with us and I considered him mine.

 

That was my first encounter with death and dying. It was so sad that I avoided the thought of it as much as I could. Even the threat of it was distressing.

 

Still, as the seasons turned I experienced more such losses, first in the form of animals I loved then, as people. The sorrow I felt for people, I found, was far more difficult to erase from my thoughts. A song, a word, a fragrance, a sunset, could call to mind a memory and a tear would well. And I learned there is a sort of sacredness in tears. They aren’t the mark of weakness nor unmanliness. For they speak more expressively than ten thousand words. Indeed, they are harbingers of overwhelming suffering and unspeakable love, and so very human.

 

And I learned that each of us grieves in our own distinctive way, and I could recognize that way when I saw it in the faces of others.

 

Relatively recently I have met a man who has demonstrated to me a most unique way of grieving. He summons friends and neighbors in as many numbers as will come, to drink his wine and share in his food each year on the date he lost his only son. Personally, I can think of no better way to remember the tragic loss of a loved one. To hoist a glass and drink to those of us who are no longer here and to gather in a jovial manner and laugh once more at the trials and frailties of life. And again I am reminded how very special each and every one of us are. Like a pail of water thrown on the ground that can never again be regained, a human life is so precious Even in memory it should be celebrated. And in reality it never belonged to us but we shared a time together.

 

Thank you Peter Menyhart, for your invitation to me and mine to join You and Yours on your special day. And I’m sure this is shared by all of us.

 

~ Weakeyes Cody