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.
Blyss Kennels Stripped Bare
Some days you are keenly made aware of what you have and what you have not. For me, each day is a sorry reminder of my most profound loss, a Blyss borzoi. It can be either any of the ones I have had, or a borzoi yet to come. I am consumed with grief and loneliness for those I have lost to death. That emotion was previously saved for Opal but today it is for all of them, collectively.
I look at their portraits on the wall for comfort, and their collars, leashes and show leads on the coat rack for the recollection of happy times spent together on walks or entries in conformation shows. There are other objects, too, that I can never put away or discard. It would be like a form of suicide, as if to deny I had ever lived or felt joy.
The Blyss borzoi were the best of me, and I gave them my best. I could not be more lonely or grief stricken, knowing no person could touch me this way. They only brought me joy and love unconditionally, and they knew they had my heart as none other had it. Today I walk alone, as I will forever, for they are gone.