I received some sad news from my cousin, Kathy, a couple of weeks ago. Buster, the pride and joy of my cousin, Cheryl, died suddenly. Cheryl loved her Buster. I remember when visiting Cheryl, seeing Cheryl prepare a royal feast of steak and other fine food for Buster, and hand feeding Buster the food. Buster, as you can see from the photograph, was a French poodle and was very fussy about what he would eat. Given his French lineage, and the notoriety surrounding French cuisine, this might explain his dietary fussiness. Tragically, Cheryl died in January of 2018, and, since her death, Buster has been living with my cousin, Kathy and her husband, Frank.
It is a phenomena that when two people live long lives together, when one of them dies, the other often dies in the 18 months following. I think, perhaps, this might be the case with Buster. He missed his momma so much, that he wanted to join her in heaven.
People often wonder whether we will be reunited with our beloved pets when we die. There are some hard nose theologians who are appalled at the idea of animals sharing heaven with humanity. The idea of animals having souls is an aberration, a sin against the law of God. I disagree strongly with this sentiment. The idea of not being reunited with our Great Pyrs, Floydrmoose and Henri is an aberration to me. And, I am not the only one who thinks that our beloved pets possess souls. Even John Paul II believed that because all animals were created by the breath of God, they possess souls. Pope Francis I wrote in his encyclical, “Laudato Si”, ” Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.”
For those of us who look at our animals as pets, rather than as a commodity, we experience their personalities, their emotional palate, their joys and their woes. Our relationships with our animals challenge our self-notion of superiority. For those of us who have dogs in our homes, what better way is it to experience unconditional love then when we come home? I am generally greeted by our current dog, Belle E Button, a Boxerdore (boxer/labrador mix), with great enthusiasm and her favorite bone.
I plan on being cremated when I die. I was joking with our local funeral director that if one of my kids mixed the cremains of my Great Pyr, Henri, with my cremains, would I arise on the Last Day looking like the character, Barf, the Mog (part man, part dog) that John Candy played in Mel Brook’s movie, “Space Balls”? But I digress …
In memory of my cousin Cheryl, and her beloved companion, Buster, I composed this music. My cousins, Cheryl and Kathy are half Polish (my dad was their uncle). To honor the Polish blood that runs in our family, I decided to compose the music as a Mazurka, a Polish dance in 3/4. The Polish composer, Chopin, was very fond of Mazurkas, and composed many of them. Now you might note that Buster was not Polish, but French. To that I would say, though Chopin was Polish, he spent most of his professional life in France and is buried there.
Here is the music for Cheryl and Buster.
