A Big Little Life

inextricably entwined because we are mortal and can know love only under the condition that what we love will inevitably be lost. That afternoon on the terrace, Gerda and I felt hammered by our loss, and broken.
    Bruce Whitaker, whose work had brought him to many such moments, wept with us, as did David, whosaid, “She was such a very special dog.” Later David would write us to say, in part, “Trixie had a special place in my heart. Normally, I am able to maintain a certain amount of detachment. In her case, this was simply not possible for me.”
    Together, Bruce and David wrapped Trixie in a blanket, and David carried her to the SUV in which they had arrived. Arms around each other, Gerda and I followed them through the downstairs and into the garage, where our golden girl’s tail slipped from the folds of the blanket and trailed behind her, as if her spirit lingered just long enough to arrange this final farewell.
    We could have buried Trixie on our property, but we didn’t want to leave her remains there if the day ever came when we lived elsewhere. Her ashes will be with us wherever we might go. The pet cemetery that would conduct the cremation remained closed through Wednesday, for the long Fourth of July holiday. Bruce would keep her in his freezer until Thursday morning.
    In the house once more, Gerda and I were lost. We didn’t seem to belong there anymore. Every room was familiar yet as different as a room in someone else’s house. We did not know what to do, did not want to do anything, but could not sit idle because, in idleness, the ever-pressing grief became crushing, suffocating.
    Then Gerda was so shaken by the sight of one of Trixie’s dog beds that she wanted to collect them all—many of them new—from every room, strip off the covers, wash and dry them, and put the beds away in a storeroom until theycould be offered to employees and friends who had dogs. We gathered up the plush toys, as well, scores of them, because they were no longer merely toys but also needles in the heart.
    All our lives, work had been our refuge and redemption. Now only work could prevent despair from overwhelming us.
    I called Mike and Mary Lou Delaney, Linda, and only a few other people who knew Trixie best, who had spent much time with her and who thought of her as something more than a dog, though a dog itself is a glorious thing to be. I couldn’t bear to call many people, because each time that I told the story of her death, I broke down as I had never done before. Gerda could speak to no one about it for days, to no one but me, and as so often in our lives together, we were for each other the rock that gave us footing.
    We took comfort in the knowledge that God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.
     
    THE PET CEMETERY covered a considerable tract of land. Most of the hundreds upon hundreds of granite markers were decorated with real or artificial flowers, flags, dogtoys, and balloons. Judging by these displays, this place was more frequently visited than any burial ground where human beings were interred.
    The crematorium was in a garagelike structure behind the main building in which business and services were conducted. We were led there to see the body Thursday morning, because we wanted to be certain that Trixie’s remains did not go into the fire with others.
    During the half-hour drive from home, we steeled ourselves for the likelihood that this moment would be grotesque. After all, the body had been frozen since Saturday, had been brought here only this morning; it could not have fully thawed.
    Instead of a grisly sight, we came upon a scene of stark truth and beauty. The crematorium was a plain rough space: dark rafters, chipped concrete floor, intricacies of shadows in the corners, hard light falling through the open door and directly upon the cremator, reality as Andrew Wyeth might have captured it in a painting. The cremator was a solid brute of iron and concrete, old and scarred by years of use, and the air smelled of a purifying heat. On a wheeled cart was a pallet, and on the pallet lay the body of our girl. Before the body was frozen, Bruce Whitaker or