Losing Diva
Mary Egan Campbell
Everyday like clockwork, upon arrival in my driveway, the blind would lift up and two little faces appear in the window. A window with my children long since flown the nest, it did my heart good to see those two waiting for me, tails wagging, howling like wolves with excitement to see me return. A pair of imps, so unruly and annoying to live with, but my best friends all the same.
On a bad day I would lie on my sofa, in pyjamas, unwashed and unkempt with two honey coloured Jack Russells sprawled across my body, giving me all the therapeutic love and support that I need. Their loyalty unwavering.
Devil and Diva came to me in an unorthodox but timely fashion some 10 years earlier. My youngest driving tractors, before it was legal, was crossing his uncle’s land and spotted a box floating on the pond near the sheep paddocks. A large cardboard box securely taped with brown wrapping tape was an unusual sight in the middle of acres of rural farmland, so of course he stopped to have a look.
Christopher was shocked to find the box filled with little blind puppies, squirming and squealing in distress with no mother to feed them. Some of their siblings already limp or dead.
The poor lad was distraught and ran back across the fields to the farmhouse to try to warm and revive the little creatures by the old Stanley range.
My uncle wanted nothing to do with them, but on Christopher’s insistence, nestled the still living pups next to his old bitch sheepdog Dusty in her basket by the door.
Dusty was long past the nursing stage and the dusting of white on her thick coat had long turned grey, but she was a gentle dog and paid no heed to the squirming bodies curled into her rather expansive belly.
Christopher warmed some cow’s milk, then using a veterinary syringe, patiently fed those he could while my uncle took the dead ones out for burial in the garden.
Needless to say, while my uncle kept one for himself as company for Dusty, and my father took two under severe pressure from Christopher, the remaining two smallest ones came to me. Whether I wanted them or not.
Christopher was finishing up school for the summer and promised faithfully to mind them and clean up after them.
Today, however, only one face appears under the blinds. I feel a sense of dread as I turn the key in the lock. Devil doesn’t come to greet me, but rather returns to his basket by the fire, where Diva lies. He licks her and growls, softly keening.
I too am choked up at the sight of my little friend’s dead body lying there.
On autopilot, I wrap her in a little blanket Christopher loved as a baby and place her gently in the ground by the rose bushes at the end of the garden. I say a little prayer and walk tearfully back to the house but Devil does not follow me.
He remains by the mound of earth. Pining for his buddy.
The essence of Diva beneath the cold soil keeps him there till well after dark. He has come back inside now and is in the basket sniffing her scent, refusing to join me on the sofa.
I feel his pain. I too am mourning and head off to bed early with a heavy heart.
Mary Egan Campbell is a member of Inklings Writing Group. Inklings meet on Tuesdays at 11am and Wednesdays at 7.30pm in the Annebrook Hotel. Visitors are welcome.