Remembrance
Death can happen on any day of any year. I try to love as hard and well as I can, while I can. When loved hounds leave me, I believe they do so, so I can love another – because there are always more hounds needing love. And love makes the world go round.
To continue to give love, I feel, honors the love I received.
To help honor the love of a hound, the Greyhound Gang respectfully offers the following ideas with the passing of a loved greyhound. Do click on them to learn more.
- • In Remembrance Medallion
- • Peaceful Calming Oil or Mister
- • In Memory On-line Photo Album
- • Dog Heaven Book
To contact others that understand your grief – join Circle of Greys. They are a support group of greyhound lovers, who help each other through sad times.
This is a poem that helps me continue to love because I believe.
CREDO by Maxine Kumin
I believe in magic. I believe in the rights
of animals to leap out of our skins
as it is said in the Tlingit legend:
That instant a bear appeared where a boy had been
as I believe in the resurrected wake-robin,
first wet knob of trillium to knock
in April at the underside of earth’s door
in central New Hampshire where bears are,
though still denned up at that early greening.
I believe in living on grateful terms
with the earth, with the black crumbles
of ancient manure that sift through my fingers
when I topdress the garden for winter. I believe
in the red strings of earthworms aroused out of season
and in the bear, asleep now in the rock cave
where my outermost pasture abuts the forest.
I cede him a swale of chokeberries in August.
I give the sow and her cub as much yardage
as they desire when our paths intersect,
as does my horse shifting under me
respectful but not cowed by our encounter.
I believe in the gift of the horse, which is magic,
their deep fear-snorts in play when the wind comes up,
and the ballet of nip and jostle, plunge and crow hop.
I trust them to run from me, necks arched in a full
swan’s S, tails cocked up over their backs
like plumes on a Cavalier’s hat. I trust them
to gallop back, skid to a stop, their nostrils
level with my mouth, asking for my human breath
that they may test its intent, taste the lure of it.
I believe in myself as their sanctuary
and in the earth with its summer plumes of carrots,
its clamber of peas, beans, masses of tendrils
as mine. I believe in the acrobatics of boy
into bear, the grace of animals
in my keeping, the thrust to go on.