As I find the present increasingly difficult at times, I find myself living more and more in the past, musing upon the happy days surrounding the inception of Byss Kennels. However, I cannot help but wonder is it the truth or is it a fantasy? I find myself in the time and place when Blyss Kennels was most alive. It was in September 2003. It was first and foremost a time when Bob and I still believed in one another unconditionally. We were so full of optimism that we were giddy! We quickly moved forward and bought what would become to me the iconic “Blyss House”, atop the first ridge of the Watchung Mountain in M——, NJ, along with our foundation borzoi, all in rapid succession: Casanova, Mikhailya, Paris and Opal. They were heady times! They were the days before the tragedies befell.
Although the front of the house was on the rise of a steep hill top along S—– L——, the house and back yard sat on a flat plateau with room spacious enough for the borzoi. Further back in the yard, the steep rise of the hill continued again leading to the highest point of the mountain. It was a gorgeous home that came with dramatic views of the Watchung Mountains in Northern NJ. That was where our borzoi called home and we called Blyss Kennels.
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I should have learned all there was to know about love from the Blyss borzoi with whom we immersed our lives, but today I fall short of the mark. I can only pray for the return of my full human qualities, snuffed out by disease, distrust and loss, and to be successful in recovering them, or at least covering up their absence and shortcomings. They show. And so, I try to remember what it is to “human love” another, to be a “good person” to another, to “give back” to another especially when so much has been given to me in “full measure”of love that I can drown in it, knowing how I fail in “generosity of spirit”. That I am sub-human to another is anathema to me knowing how full of “the humane” I am toward my animals to whom I shower with “love effortlessly”!
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I still cannot forget them all those years ago, three to be exact, when Bob died and the house I loved so much,”Blyss House” was sold. God asked for him back, so I had to let him go. It was not unlike Opal three years prior, when the hand of God itself swooped down to take her and I had to give her back to Him. In retrospect, I fear these losses left me a body without a heart yet somehow I go on trying to love with what I do not know and do not have: Opal ~ Bob ~ Opal ~ Bob~ etc. etc. etc.
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I still go on with the battle: a disease here, loneliness there, and a solo borzoi, aged and frail. He must have been left behind by mistake. Otherwise, he would be gone, too. Just one after so many….. just one remains. So many who were there from Blyss in September 2003 are gone. Even Blyss is gone if truth be told, having moved on to a tiny house down the mountain for charm, comfort and ease. Yet, one borzoi still remains, so it still is Blyss, is it not? It can still be, can’t it? It is not I about whom I write or what, or when it happened that is important. It is about the borzoi, them, even if it is one aged borzoi, Paris, who is here. It is all about him, whom we love so much.