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Sunday, December 06, 2009

The Service

Last week we got a call saying that Merlin's ashes were ready. Having already been warned that it would be emotionally exhausting to pick them up, the Big Giraffe went instead of me. It was weird seeing this small box and thinking that Merlin was in there. Surely the box for an 84 lb dog with such an outgoing personality would be bigger, right?

Our minister came over today. She was supposed to come later but with snow predicted we asked her if she would mind coming by a couple hours earlier. She said it wasn't a problem. She arrived with a couple dog poems on her Kindle and a small bouquet of roses. We gathered Merlin's container of ashes, and she read a nice poem. Then we went out to Merlin's favorite spot in the backyard where we shared our favorite Merlin stories.

Mine was about that spot. When Merlin was about 6 months old, we couldn't figure out why he was always so eager to go outside. Yes, dogs like to go outside, but Merlin really liked to go out and hang out by the fence. I just assumed he liked the sun. A few weeks after he started doing this I ran into our neighbors. It turns out that they would feed him Cheeze-Its everyday along that fence! They didn't like Cheeze-It's themselves. They had bought a big box of them specifically for Merlin. From then on the Big Giraffe and I always refer to Cheeze-it's as dog treats as in "Hey Dog Treats are on sale at the store!" For the record, we all like them.

After we all had a chance to share, we spread his ashes. The kids did it too. Then our minister gave the kids roses and holly to lay down on the ground. They liked that a lot. Of course both of them did try to "plant" the roses, probably because we had told the kids that Merlin's ashes were going back to the dirt and would help the grass and flowers grow next spring. The ceremony was really a celebration of life. It lasted maybe 10 minutes at most. It was happy, moving and just the way we had wanted it.

It was particularly touching to have our minister perform this small ceremony because we used to dogsit her golden retriever, Bosci, whenever she would travel. Merlin and Bosci spent hours running back and forth in our backyard. At the end of the ceremony, we gave her a check. She tried to refuse it, but we insisted. I know I mentioned in another post about how I had picked out a senior orthopedic dog bed for Merlin a couple days before he got sick. I had earmarked the pages and left on the catalog on the counter with the intention of ordering it in the next week or so. After Merlin died and I came home the catalog was one of the first things I noticed. I hadn't told our minster about this small detail.

We told our minister to use the money however she saw fit. She began to talk about using it for the church. The BG interrupted her and said that because she has always been there for us over the years, we really encouraged her to consider using the money on something for herself, rather than for the church. We were giving the money to her. She paused for a moment and then said that she had really wanted to get her dog a senior orthopedic dog bed.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Merlin's friend should rest peacefully, while Merlin rests in peace.

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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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