Michael Friis Johansen

when he was one day old, but now forever coupled with that image will be the memory of his heavy lifeless head resting in that same hand. Those 13 years between will always seem far too short, far too fleeting.
     Amidst all the tragedy we face in this world some may wonder why I make all this fuss over the passing of a mere dog, over a pet I’ve always known I would probably long outlive. Well, it’s because he was a dog, because there was nothing ‘mere’ about him, or about any dog. If humans have any decency, any sense of how to express devotion, of how to feel unconditional love, perhaps we learned it from these mere dogs over the uncounted millennia we’ve been together.
     Before they came to us, before we brought them into our lives, we were alone in a vast wilderness — weak, slow primates who needed the kind of help an animal like a dog could give us. Fortunately, we had just enough brains to know a good thing when we saw it. Without dogs to help us hunt our food, to protect us in our homes and on the land, to travel with us across the prehistoric world, could we have survived long enough to found our civilizations?
The wonder of it is that dogs did not remain just tools for our use. They became our friends — even when we may not have deserved their friendship. They came to love us so purely we could not help but return that love. Over thousands of years the bond has only grown closer and we are the richer for it. I give dogs the credit, since few humans I have known — including and perhaps especially myself — could ever match them for innocence, understanding and compassion.
     That, in part, is why I cannot hide the intense grief I feel over the loss of my beautiful Ben. For most of the last 13 years he was rarely more than a few metres from my side. I wanted him near and he wanted to be near me.
I still see him everywhere. When I come down the stairs in my house there he is at the bottom, looking up. When I open the door to go outside there he is eagerly pushing his nose through the widening gap, anxious to come with me where ever I’m going. I see him lying in the shade, running in the sun, snuffling through the underbrush, and digging in the sand.
     In the morning I want to let him out to pee. At night I want to bring him back in again to sleep. At supper-time I know he must be hungry and my heart breaks once again when I remember he is gone.
     The weight of Ben’s loss, so heavy all through the day, threatens anew to crush me to the ground after every one of those brief moments when I imagine he is still alive. But I do not wish that weight to go away. My precious Ben is gone — I can no longer caress his soft fur and feel the warmth of his body — but he has not left me alone in the wilderness. He’s here in my mind and heart.
     I see him everywhere still and I hope I always will.

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The St. John's Telegram, August 31, 2008