Dog-Kissed Tears: Songs of Friendship, Loss, and Healing

By Lambert Zuidervaart

"It is 4:00 a.m. the day after Rosa died.
I am wide-awake from a brief and troubled sleep."

This book explores the loss of a dear friend and companion-a remarkable fifteen-year-old retriever named Rosa.

Many people form deep attachments to their pets. Yet we wonder how to celebrate our friendships with them and how to grieve their death. Dog-Kissed Tears is a meditative memoir woven from life with Rosa. In stories that are funny, sad, moving, and honest, Lambert Zuidervaart links his attachment to his beloved dog and his love for human friends. Familiar songs help him trace his personal journey through the adoption, life, and death of a canine companion. As Lambert works through grief and longing for Rosa, he connects memories of childhood with self-discoveries in middle age.

Dog-Kissed Tears weaves a lyrical narrative of friendship, loss, and healing. Its spiritual undercurrent is subtle but profound.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Sep 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781498272803

Lambert Zuidervaart

Lambert Zuidervaart is emeritus professor of philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies and the University of Toronto and a visiting scholar at Calvin University. He is the author of nine book in philosophy, including Artistic Truth, Social Philosophy after Adorno, and Religion, Truth, and Social Transformation. A resident of West Michigan, he sings in the Chamber Choir of Grand Rapids and two church choirs.

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Dog-Kissed Tears

Songs of Friendship, Loss, and Healing

Lambert Zuidervaart

2008.Resource_logo.jpg

Dog-Kissed Tears

Songs of Friendship, Loss, and Healing

Copyright © 2010 Lambert Zuidervaart. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

ISBN 13: 978-1-60899-700-8

EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-7280-3

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The publishers listed have given permission to use quotations from the following copyrighted lyrics.

Festival of Friends

Written by Bruce Cockburn

Copyright © 1988 Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN)

Used by permission.

Healer of Our Every Ill by Marty Haugen

Copyright © 1987 by GIA Publications, Inc.,

7404 S. Mason Ave., Chicago, IL 60638

www.giamusic.com 800.442.1358

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Fields of Gold

Music and Lyrics by Sting

© 1993 STEERPIKE LTD.

Administered by EMI MUSIC PUBLISHING LIMITED

All Rights Reserved International Copyright Secured

Used by Permission

Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

Fragile

Music and Lyrics by Sting

© 1987 G.M. SUMNER

Administered by EMI MUSIC PUBLISHING LIMITED

All Rights Reserved International Copyright Secured

Used by Permission

Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

Precious Lord, Take My Hand

Words and Music by Thomas A. Dorsey

Copyright © 1938 by Unichappell Music Inc.

Copyright Renewed

International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved

Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry

Words and Music by Hank Williams

Copyright © 1949 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC and Hiriam Music in the U.S.A.

Copyright Renewed

All Rights on behalf of Hiriam Music Administered by Rightsong Music Inc.

All Rights outside the U.S.A. Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

All Rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203

International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved

Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

Photography courtesy of the author.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1: Prelude: Songs of Benjamin

Chapter 2: Lead Me Home

Chapter 3: Retrieval

Chapter 4: Comfort

Chapter 5: Fragile

Chapter 6: Snow on Snow

Chapter 7: Blessing

Chapter 8: Rest Gently, Gently Rest

Chapter 9: Benediction

Chapter 10: Field of Love

Chapter 11: Healing

Chapter 12: Reunion

Chapter 13: Alone

Chapter 14: Homecoming

Chapter 15: Postlude: Elegy

Notes

For Joyce and to the memory of my parents

Thank you for gracing my life.

1

Prelude: Songs of Benjamin

An elegant song won’t hold up long When the palace falls and the parlour’s gone We all must leave but it’s not the end We’ll meet again at the festival of friends.

Smiles and laughter and pleasant times There’s love in the world but it’s hard to find I’m so glad I found you—I’d just like to extend An invitation to the festival of friends.¹

I did not plan to write this book. I needed to write it. I needed to celebrate the gift of friendship. And I wanted to lament the loss of a friend. The friend is a dog named Rosa. A beautiful Golden Retriever / Labrador Retriever mix whose noble bearing and affectionate ways would melt the stoniest heart, Rosa was my loving companion for fifteen years. Her gentle nudge and waving tail said that she welcomed all visitors both big and small.

Rosa lies at the center of my circle of human friends. I am connected to them through her. When Rosa died in February 2005, this circle drew near. They shared my grief and encouraged my journey without her. This book celebrates their friendship along with hers. Indirectly the book also laments two losses in this intimate circle. Jeanie Zinkand died at age 47 in August 2000. Esther Hart died at age 39 in April 2007. Jeanie, the mother of our goddaughter Kate; Esther, our own goddaughter, and the mother of a very special little girl named Sophie—both of them cut down by cancer, both of them best friends of my wife Joyce Recker, and my friends too. I do not know how to write directly about losing Jeanie and Esther and about our longing for their companionship. In writing about Rosa, I am also thinking of them.

There have been other losses. One of our friends lost his lover to a sudden heart attack. Two were abruptly and unjustly dismissed from jobs they enjoyed, by an institution they faithfully served. Another friend went through a devastating separation and divorce. Two others have lost both their mother and their best friend to cancer. This book celebrates their friendships with us and laments their losses too.

I think of my