Some musings about death and dog turds

Gunther Brussels Griffon and would-be rat-terrier

I feel better now that the sun is shining again.  Now I wonder if I can write for, say, 15 minutes?  I’ll give it a try.

Surprised me how warm it seemed this morning when I took Gunther out for our 7a.m. foray to seek a decent bowel movement location.  That sounds a bit stilted, doesn’t it?  I meant a good place to shit.  Gunther found one, as he walked gingerly across the crusty snow and let fly with his usual volley of five.  Two longs, three shorts.  You know how the Navajo had code talkers?  I think Gunther could devise a code in turd length.  Two minutes, so far.

Anyway, suffice it to say that Gunther could walk across the icy crust on the snowbank but I broke through up to my knees when I walked in to retrieve said turds.  Got snow in my rubber boots.  Not a big deal, certainly, what with the beauty and comparative warmth this morning.  Might have been 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  I spend a lot of time thinking about Gunther’s bowels.  He’s only a little less than two years old!  We consider May first to be his birthday, because we don’t know.  His veterinarian checked his teeth and thought he was older than we had previously thought.  Reminds me of something our daughter Clara told me in the fifth grade:  you know those cats with rings on their tails?  They are older than you think.

I’m glad I finally started writing again.  I feel as though I’m just starting to get thawed out.  Turns out my sister found out she has cancer within the last couple of weeks, and she asked me to help her write her obituary.  I mean, she isn’t in any imminent danger, but she may well have only a couple of years left for this planet.  Makes me reflect on my deepest held beliefs concerning life and death and the finality of death, or lack of finality.

That’s a great place to stop writing today.  It’s a reasonable position to take that death is final, like shutting off a light switch.  Perhaps that death is like the period we all (didn’t) experience prior to being born.  I’m not one hundred percent sure that is the case.  I think other possibilities exist.  Reincarnation is an  attractive alternative, and seems attractive enough to be believable.  After all, we cannot “not exist” can we?  If one is a Buddhist, one believes in stages of existence after death.  These seem reasonable to me as well.