Beryl

My little dog Beryl

Thoughts by Walter Jonas

I have lost a friend and am heartbroken. I keep asking myself who forced me to decide about life and death. - It had to be - because my dog ​​Berryl - that's who I'm talking about - had become old and very ill. She could no longer stand, could no longer walk, and at night she whimpered heartbreakingly. - And yet, when I gently stroked her one last time as I said goodbye, she leaned her little head firmly against my hand and her warm little tongue caressed and lovingly ran over my skin.

We shared our lives for fourteen and a half years and I will never forget the times when we played together happily, when Beryl dispelled his worries with her extreme sensitivity and chased away the shadows that life brings with it. She was quick to learn, or rather, she wanted me to teach her little, harmless tricks and when I finally succeeded, I felt as if she was laughing. Yes - dogs can laugh; in fact, there is no creature that can express such differentiated feelings as a dog. Her whole little body was an expression of unbridled joy of life: her eyes, her paws, her slim body, her tail.

Beryll won many prizes - probably more to the pride of her owner than to satisfy his ambition. One of the judges' words was: "outshone by a rare nobility". She retained this nobility, this nobleness, until the last moment. I must even say that later, when she was already marked by age, illness and suffering, this nobility was particularly evident. I think she hid her pain for a long time so that I wouldn't worry. But I noticed that one day she no longer wanted to run after the ball and hid in thick bushes at the edge of the meadow, as if she wanted to return to the shadow of the earth.

In the life and death of an animal, we experience our own fate in a metaphorical way and learn how to bear it with great dignity. When a beloved animal dies, a part of ourselves dies. What remains is our personal, unspeakable suffering. But this memory will also pass with our own lives and the question of the meaning of aging and death - mostly repressed by consciousness - stands before us, large and powerful and unanswerable. As a possible answer, I am reminded of Hölderlin's late poem:

The lines of life are different

As are the paths, and as are the mountains' boundaries

What we are here, a god can supplement there

With harmonies, eternal reward and peace.