There are many reason why I believe I should have another borzoi but perhaps none more compelling than when I see friends I have not seen in several months, or perhaps do not read the Blyss Blog, and they ask how my dogs are. When I tell them the Blyss Borzoi are all gone now, they express so much shock and sorrow and then ask me if I am getting another borzoi. Of course I am, I tell them, and my goal is to have one by the end of this year. It is then that I introduce “Jelly”, of the Bibikov Kennel in Cross River, NY, a four year old finished champion. Then, I see their faces light up with happiness for me, and I smile back and even laugh a bit. That is how I know I have made the right decision.
Death
Blyss Human Condition
Basically, I am happy here. I could be “happier”, I suppose, but that is the human condition. We can all always be happier. But I know I am lucky to be as well off as I am, given that I am not a particularly beautiful or wealthy or married older woman, just sort of out there somewhere between this and that. Please know that I appreciate life’s gifts so much. And this opportunity to have a normal relationship with my mother even if at the end of her life means so much to me in bringing me comfort and joy. It is somewhat akin to the memory of the love I have felt for the Blyss borzoi in my life, now gone. And soon my mother will be gone, too, after this all too brief passing by in the hallways of our lives where we briefly intersected after a long absence. It was sad to have been and although not by my choosing I nevertheless had to accept it with grace. And no sooner had we met, we had to say good-bye again.
Relationships and I am still here at Blyss
There is much death, death impending, death far away. But death is ubiquitous because one never knows when it will touch down. But until it does, there are many ways to avoid it, although one of the best methods may be running in circles.
Within two years, I lost all of the original Blyss Borzoi and my husband, too. Although I struggle hard to accept these events I cannot do so without performing behaviors that I have been informed by physicians are harmful to myself. It’s because my heart aches for these losses, and for all of the things for which they compensated. But in our own ways, “we all walk the long road.” Something got away and we keep chasing it.
In Hounds of the Steppes I write:
Eternal Hound, please, to be wherever you are!
My heart belongs to one lost long ago
Lost to the Hounds’ most open space
With blinding sun by day and dazzling stars by night…
‘Tis light, after all, a sight-hound’s true friend,
‘Twas light drove us apart…. and left me behind.
I could but stand by and watch her fly to the chase
And pray, a vision eternity cannot erase,
Having lost so much and so far the way.
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That is just one of the ways I look at all this death around me and try to understand it. But that was then and this is now. Now is the time to bring new things together and be future oriented.