A Shovel and a Pickaxe

We buried our sweet Jack today, wrapped in the soft cover of his bed pillow. We each said a prayer and took turns tossing a handful of dirt into the grave before filling it up. Then, my girls and I sang a verse of Amazing Grace, and the younger daughter cut a rose from a nearby bush to place on the grave. It was very touching.

I can't imagine any human being digging a grave by hand to bury a person, because it is back-breaking work. We finally managed to dig an appropriate grave after about an hour of shoveling and stabbing the hard dirt with a pickaxe.

My husband bought the pickaxe several years ago for some purpose no longer recalled now, and he never used it. We probably never will use it again until the time comes to bury our other dog, who is 8-years-old now. Hopefully, that won't be for a long, long time. And when it comes, it won't be easy because she's a huge labrador retriever!

Finding a place to bury your beloved pet isn't easy these days, since so many places have underground utilities, like ours. Couple that with all the massive tree roots, and you're limited to just a few spots. We finally decided on a spot near the fence, under the shade of a pecan tree that we will be cutting down in the near future. (Hurricane Elvis tore up the tree pretty badly a couple of years ago anyway, and it's never been the same since.) So we didn't care about chopping off those roots whenever they interfered.

I remember when I was a child, we designated a section of our large backyard as the graveyard. Assorted cats and goldfish were buried there. Years later, my husband buried my mother's aging dog in the same graveyard, not even knowing that the spot he had selected was where so many of our long-ago pets rested. It was very appropriate.

Jack is our first pet to be buried in this home's yard. We've lived here for 10 years. About two years after we moved in, our beloved dog, Emma, died unexpectedly at the age of 7. Our sadness was multiplied because we were 2,000 miles away when it happened. There was simply no way we could get back in time to bury her, so my father-in-law let the veterinary clinic dispose of her body. We told our children, who were 6 and 3 at the time, that the vet had buried her. They just learned the truth this week, but fortunately, they handled it well.

In Emma's memory, we planted an azalea garden in a shady corner of the backyard and fronted it with a large garden statue of a dog that looked very much like her. We put Emma's old collar around the statue's neck, and even though she's not buried there, we feel her presence.

Now, we're searching for a Sheltie statue that we can place at Jack's gravesite. We've saved Jack's collar to place around its neck. We'll probably plant some hostas and ground cover around the statue and maybe add a bench. I think Jack would've thought it would be just the place to take a nap.

He was a good boy.