Before the Walk Upstream
Aug. 15th, 2012 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisnewdayA hundred pages in, at a favorite campsite beneath a surviving stand of Ponderosa pines, Hig's companion, the dog Jasper, has died. The day before had been nearly perfect, although there were the signs. Had been for some time. And Hig allows you to read them, like signs along the trail. As I read them, I understood what they meant, had a sense of imminence which Hig himself did not seem to recognize.
Perhaps I reacted that way because I have my own Jasper near my feet, following me because he fears to be alone, to be left behind. As if my presence could hold at bay, at least for a time, the one following him. That shadow which, in his stiff joints and deaf ears, now stalks him day by day...
It is the third day. At daybreak I shift, feel him in the quilt and have a moment. A moment where I have forgotten and then a moment where I remember and still expect him to stir. Fully expect him to resurrect. Because he could. We have defied everything haven't we? Why not this?
And then I sob. Sob and sob. And rouse myself and carry him in the quilt curled, carry him just under the trees and begin to dig. With a stick, with a flat rock, with my fingers.
Goodbye, Bud. You are Jasper. My heart. We are never apart, not here, not there.
Then I scrape back in the dirt.
I spend the rest of the day gathering stones. Cobbles, eggs, heavy rocks. Smoothed and rounded by the stream. I build a mound as high as my chest. In the top I don't know what to put. I take off my old wool sweater. As much his smell as mine. I lay it over the top and pile on more rocks. To dissolve there like a prayer flag his smell and mine washing in the seasons. As if I could cover him.
Then I load up the sled and walk upstream.
[from The Dog Stars by Peter Heller, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012]
LPK
LiveJournal
8.15.2012
Perhaps I reacted that way because I have my own Jasper near my feet, following me because he fears to be alone, to be left behind. As if my presence could hold at bay, at least for a time, the one following him. That shadow which, in his stiff joints and deaf ears, now stalks him day by day...
It is the third day. At daybreak I shift, feel him in the quilt and have a moment. A moment where I have forgotten and then a moment where I remember and still expect him to stir. Fully expect him to resurrect. Because he could. We have defied everything haven't we? Why not this?
And then I sob. Sob and sob. And rouse myself and carry him in the quilt curled, carry him just under the trees and begin to dig. With a stick, with a flat rock, with my fingers.
*
Most of the morning until it is deep enough to discourage a bear. Fitting. This was one of our favorite camps in the world. Year after year. If his spirit could look out. To the changing creek, season to season. I lay him in wrapped in the quilt and I sayGoodbye, Bud. You are Jasper. My heart. We are never apart, not here, not there.
Then I scrape back in the dirt.
I spend the rest of the day gathering stones. Cobbles, eggs, heavy rocks. Smoothed and rounded by the stream. I build a mound as high as my chest. In the top I don't know what to put. I take off my old wool sweater. As much his smell as mine. I lay it over the top and pile on more rocks. To dissolve there like a prayer flag his smell and mine washing in the seasons. As if I could cover him.
Then I load up the sled and walk upstream.
[from The Dog Stars by Peter Heller, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012]
LPK
LiveJournal
8.15.2012
