A Farewell to Friends

We've said sad good-byes to two animal friends and a little boy in the past week. Our ministers, Kirk and Sandy Moore, and their daughter, Deanna, lost their beloved Rufus, a 12 year-old boxer-mix who was one of the sweetest dogs on the planet. Rufus was just a cute little puppy when he was adopted by our sensitive, enlightened and metaphysical friends. He grew into a very big dog and they found out he was actually more pit bull than boxer - not exactly what you might think of as a family pet for ministers. Kirk said they were told by the vet to call Rufus a "boxer-mix" and trust that he would be a great pet. Sure enough, he was a lover not a biter. Rufus joined us, along with the rest of his family, for Thanksgiving at the ranch last year and celebrated being in the great outdoors, which he enjoyed frequently thanks to Deanna's ardent love of nature. Rufus will be missed by everyone in our church, where he often hung out during choir practices and board meetings.

One of my sister's two precious baby horses, whom we called "Milk Dud" (although he had a fancy registered name too), died Monday, which was the day before my sister's birthday. I took it almost as hard as Meg and her family because Gary and I spent some quality time with Milk Dud during his six months of life. He was adorable and had a great personality. My niece, Hannah, enjoyed showing him off at last summer's ranch hoe-down. We don't know what caused the root of the problem that felled Milk Dud. We do know that Meg doesn't think she can take another death of a baby, so she's out of the baby horse business. Thankfully, during this Thanksgiving season, "Gus," the other baby, (whom Gary named after Partagas cigars) is still ok, energetically chasing his mom around the pen and eating well. We're all grieving for Milk Dud, but we know he's not in pain and that's a good thing. For some reason, the death of a baby horse hurts more than the death of a chicken or a skunk.

Our church community also lost a blessed three year-old boy last week. Little Liam was diagnosed with leukemia several months ago, but had responded well to treatment until late in October. His last week of life was one of pain mitigated by drugs and an outpouring of love from family, friends and community. We like to think that when Liam left the planet, he went to play with Rufus. Now Liam and Rufus have Milk Dud to play with too. Something about that vision makes me smile. I've been adding the chicken and the skunk to the visual, sans odor, to make it a kind of heavenly Bambi scene, with Milk Dud in the lead role and Liam as Thumper; whatever works to see the light on the other side of tears...