Fairwinds Forever
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“Would you like to see him?” Mary asked.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think that would be a great idea.”
In her standard comforting way, she smiled. “Yes, I think you should. You didn’t have a great farewell and you need closure.”
And while I was still not totally convinced, I agreed to come by and look at him. Having a private viewing seemed extreme, and I wasn’t sure how I would react to seeing him again. After all, I had only recently stopped crying whenever his name is mentioned. But, like the trooper I am, I went down to say a final farewell to my beloved dog.
When I entered the office, I was greeted by a smiling Mary and a hug. Beautiful urns, handmade jewelry, and creative works of art lined the walls. It took me aback and all I could think about was how amazing it is that we have these opportunities to memorialize our pets. After some exploration, Mary ran me through the number of possibilities for preserving a piece of Tristan. A teaspoon of ash could be transformed into a beautiful amulet, a picture frame could hold his portrait for eternity, a cedar urn could become a hand-carved work of art. It was all a little overwhelming.
My goal was to decide upon an urn to keep Tristan’s cremains and as the choices were all so overwhelming, Mary assisted. Her choice? A beautiful hand-carved wooden urn – it’s complex design perfectly memorializing Tristan’s unyielding, yet charming personality. As we moved along the wall, I realized I had never taken a print of his enormous coyote-paws. Mary told me it wasn’t a problem and offered to do a nose print as well.
You see, Mary is the type of person who is so compassionate, so empathetic, that she knows what you need before you know it at all. (I later learned that she had preserved clippings of his hair for me, tied neatly together with a silk ribbon and placed into a small organza bag for me to place with his remains.)
As we chatted, I continued to glance back at the door leading into the room that I somehow sensed held Tristan. Finally, she said I should go take a look.
When I entered the room, it wasn’t like anything I was at all prepared for. There on a soft silk pillow lay my beautiful pup. He looked just as he had in life when he slept peacefully in my office or at the foot of my bed. He was immaculately groomed, soft to the touch, and in all ways was my beloved Tristan.
A soft blanket covered him, his fur as silky as the pillow he rested his head on. He wore a little blue ribbon around his neck, complete with a small ceramic heart and a silver ID charm. The charm stays with the body throughout the journey through Fairwinds to ensure there is no chance of mistaken identity with his cremains. The ceramic heart is one-half of a set – Mary handed me the other half.
“This is your half of the heart.” She tells me. “So you’ll know he’s always with you.”
And then she slips from the room, giving us some privacy and plenty of time to say goodbye under less-stressful circumstances.
Had I not done the viewing, my last memory of Tristan would have been at the vet’s office when I authorized a massive overdose of anesthesia to put him to sleep. It’s not how I would choose to remember my boy.
Instead, my memory is of a dog who lived a full life and made it to a late twilight.
After our farewell, we departed the facility with heartfelt thanks. The closure was exactly what I needed and made my journey to an empty home a little easier to bear.
