{"id":19599,"date":"2017-09-08T11:12:16","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T15:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=19599"},"modified":"2017-09-08T12:30:37","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T16:30:37","slug":"the-weight-deadens-on-your-shoulders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/the-weight-deadens-on-your-shoulders\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weight Deadens on Your Shoulders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: The Pooch (12\/26\/2006-09\/04\/2017). Photo taken 8\/21\/2017. She was an unwilling photographic subject: if you held up a smartphone or camera in her direction — which you <\/em>always wanted to do, you couldn’t help it — she’d turn her head aside, as here, while keeping a gimlet eye trained on you. She was a cute dog, often involved in cute activities, but the only way to document them was to shoot a bazillion shots and just pray that one would be suitable.]<\/em><\/p>\nN<\/span>o whiskey river<\/em> Friday this week; I just cannot work up the enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

The Pooch<\/a> (that is to say, Sophie<\/span>) died this past Monday morning, towards the tail end of a long weekend for all three of us. She was all right, and then she wasn’t.<\/p>\n

Okay, true: she wasn’t “all right” healthwise — but then again, she never had been. Small dogs often have breathing problems of one sort or another. In The Pooch’s case, she had an issue called “collapsing trachea”: the windpipe over time slackens, just at a point where it bends. Eventually, it slackens enough to close up completely, with the expected results. One of the chief early symptoms of a collapsing trachea is occasional coughing, often in the form of so-called “reverse coughing”: it sounds sorta like a cough, sorta like a sneeze, and often has hints of a goose’s honk. So we knew, early on, that eventually the problem would take her.<\/p>\n

(It’s not “treatable,” by the way. Oh, you can administer cover-ups like cough suppressants. Surgically, a couple of things can be done, to strengthen the trachea artificially. They all come with potential side-effects and, in some cases, the side-effects can be much, much worse than the condition itself. Even so, surgical options were out of the question for The Pooch: she was so small, and the risks bloomed proportionately.)<\/p>\n

But knowing that something awful will happen seldom seems to fully prepare you for its, well, happening<\/em>. The Missus and I have spent the week in a fog of crying jags triggered by nothing in particular except the weight of a new, awful, sudden vacancy. (I think today was the first time I’ve ever broken down while taking a shower, surrounded by nothing at all to remind me of her except, yes, that very vacancy.) We’ve lost other pets. And yes, we’ll come out of this grief eventually — but boy, this one has hit us hard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\nI<\/span>n the wake of Monday’s events, I received via email a poem which the sender did not write, but had taken comfort from herself. As it happens, the poet<\/a> has<\/em> been featured here before — and yes, on numerous whiskey river<\/em> Fridays. (A beannacht<\/em> is a blessing, a benediction.)<\/p>\n

Beannacht<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the day when
\nThe weight deadens<\/span>
\nOn your shoulders<\/span>
\nAnd you stumble,<\/span>
\nMay the clay dance<\/span>
\nTo balance you.<\/span><\/p>\n

And when your eyes
\nFreeze behind<\/span>
\nThe grey window<\/span>
\nAnd the ghost of loss<\/span>
\nGets into you,<\/span>
\nMay a flock of colours,<\/span>
\nIndigo, red, green<\/span>
\nAnd azure blue,<\/span>
\nCome to awaken in you<\/span>
\nA meadow of delight.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the canvas frays
\nIn the currach<\/span> of thought<\/span>
\nAnd a stain of ocean<\/span>
\nBlackens beneath you,<\/span>
\nMay there come across the waters<\/span>
\nA path of yellow moonlight<\/span>
\nTo bring you safely home.<\/span><\/p>\n

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
\nMay the clarity of light be yours,<\/span>
\nMay the fluency of the ocean be yours,<\/span>
\nMay the protection of the ancestors be yours.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so may a slow
\nWind work these words<\/span>
\nOf love around you,<\/span>
\nAn invisible cloak<\/span>
\nTo mind your life.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(John O’Donohue [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

The wind is slow, yes. May the wind and the cloak help. May they help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: The Pooch (12\/26\/2006-09\/04\/2017). Photo taken 8\/21\/2017. She was an unwilling photographic subject: if you held up a smartphone or camera in her direction — which you always wanted to do, you couldn’t help it — she’d turn her head aside, as here, while keeping a gimlet eye trained on you. She was a cute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Weight Deadens on Your Shoulders","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,16,38,15,247,1393,405,251],"tags":[1632,1935],"class_list":{"0":"post-19599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-everyday-life","8":"category-themissus","9":"category-backwards","10":"category-family","11":"category-ruminations","12":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","13":"category-nature","14":"category-poetry-writing_cat","15":"tag-the-pooch","16":"tag-the-missus","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/tootsatoneocean_20170821_184046_color_cropped_thumb.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-567","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19599"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19608,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19599\/revisions\/19608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}