Ode to a Friend

Rest gently, my sweet boy. You were a brave soul, Barney. You are greatly missed.

Last November we discovered an ominous growth in Barney's mouth. We had it removed and, sure enough, the biopsy (by a German testing company, if that matters) determined it was cancer, a particularly agressive canine type. So the clock started ticking. And the realization that he would not make that 14 hour journey back to the States with us again settled in. 

At that time I happened to be reading "Peony In Love" by Lisa See. In it the main character spends about 2/3 of the book as a ghost. Although this was not my first exposure to the beliefs of the Chinese regarding death, it was one of the most comprehensive. Many Chinese believe that there are 3 levels of afterlife that the soul must travel and basically the success of your journey is directly related to the actions of your surviviors after you pass on. Kinda frustrating, huh? Without their help you cannot continue to the next level. You may have seen stories or pictures of Chinese burning "money", "clothing" and "food" during memorial and funeral services. This is because they believe that the soul needs all of these things to live in the next life, as in the current one, but can only obtain these things through ancestor worship. (Lately there have been stories of people burning effigies of iPads and iPhones!)

Through the inattentiveness of Peony's parents (not due to their grief I might add), her funeral rites are not performed correctly and she is doomed to forever inhabit the wasteland of the first afterlife. Her description of the world in which she now lives is incredibly bleak and hopeless: her clothing is in tatters, she is starving and her loved ones don't seem to remember her at all. As she describes this miserable existence, numerous times she mentions the mongrel dogs also cursed to languish forever in the first realm, starving, mangy strays sleeping in the cold. Unloved, just like her.

There is never an explanation why the dogs are this way in this Chinese version of what happens after, but it stuck with me. If we live in China now, are we subjected to their beliefs regarding what comes next? We will not live here forever but if Barney passes away here, what happens to him when we leave? Will he become a mongrel stray, starving and freezing in the next life? I never had to worry about these things in Indiana. I could leave him "behind" if we were in Australia or Switzerland. I can't leave him behind in China!

The good news is that we shared 8 more months with him after the initial diagnosis. Sweet fuzzy face. And when the end came it was fast and without question that the time had come. It was a sad, but not an agonizing decision. For this I am grateful. I am also grateful that we will be able to have him cremated so when we do leave China he can come with us. Maybe he will be returned to his yard in Indianapolis. Maybe we will have to find another permanent solution. All that matters to me is he will not be left behind. 

Godspeed my friend. I hope you stay well-fed and warm on your next journey. You started out as a stray but you are well-loved in this life~