Bear Midnight Miller

"Also the animals possess a soul, and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren."
Pope John Paul II

“Bear is going to Puppy Heaven today,” I told my four-year-old daughter on Friday, “She will be able to go play with all our bunnies who are there - Hoppity, Peach, and Lucky.” She seemed to understand. She had watched me change bandages on her bleeding paws and carry her around because she was no longer able to walk, and she knew Bear was old and sick.

Bear, who has been in perfect health all thirteen years of her happy life, had a sudden decline over the past two weeks. Her had stopped eating and breathing was so poor that we knew her time was imminent.

“I can’t stand to see her suffer any more,” my husband said, and so we arranged to have a traveling veterinarian come to our house that evening at 7:30 PM, when we could have the whole family together. Still I hoped for a natural death for my gentle friend.

I carried her outside for some sunshine. At around noon, I went out and blessed her with holy water. “Please Jesus, take her home to be with you. St. Francis of Assissi, please help her.”

Although I had bathed her two days before, her smell was attracting flies, so I brought her in to the kitchen. I cleaned the house, put out freshly cut flowers and lit candles, to make the atmosphere peaceful for that evening.

Two of the children came home at 3:35. I explained to them what we planned to do and why. They were a little upset. At 3:40 I went outside to push my little one on the swings. At 3:45 I heard a yelp and the water bowl crash. I ran inside and saw that she had passed, her head on her paw.

I called the children and when they all met in the kitchen at once, they all started to howl. I tried to hug them all at once, and moved them into the living room. We stayed there for about 20 minutes and then moved outside to the deck. I was surprised that they were able to enjoy a goldfish snack, and actually play a little game with the goldfish crackers.

We had to pick up my older daughter from cross country at the high school. I warned them not to say anything to her until we got home. I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of the school or even in front of my house.

She came out of the school looking very happy. “I had a great day!” she declared.
Her sister and I exchanged looks when she was putting her stuff into the trunk.
We got home and I said we needed to go around back. I wanted to tell her in the back yard before going into the house.

Later she would say that she always knows what is coming when I tell them to sit down. We had gone through this with the bunnies.

“Come here,” I said, as I put my arms around her.

“Is it Bear?”

She looked at the other kids and knew. It was even worse for her. We had gotten Bear as a two-month-old puppy when she was a two-month-old newborn, and we celebrated their birthdays together.

Coming home to no dog was hard. . .

On Sunday morning I dreamt that Bear was playing with Alamo, the golden retriever of my childhood. I woke to the sound of giggling girls. I knew we were going to be okay. I went to Michael’s to purchase a garden stone kit. Together we made a garden stone for Bear, and planted mums around her grave.

"All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful:
the Lord God made them all."
Cecil F. Alexander"

Snow: A Lesson in Temporal Beauty

“Where’s my Frosty ?!?” I heard my three-year-old exclaim on Sunday morning, as she went downstairs for breakfast and looked out the back door.

We had had a blizzard the previous weekend, which left behind a record 26.3 inches of snow here on Long Island. The first day it was too dry to make a snowman and the older kids had spent much of the day making trails in the snow for her to walk through. By the third day, there was enough moisture for them to make large snowmen and even a snow bunny. My three-year-old had proudly put the finishing touches on the bunny, adding a purple scarf for it to stay “warm”.

After one week of white beauty, it rained – and rained – and rained – enough for most of all that snow to be washed away. All that was left of the snow creatures were sad little piles of hats and scarves; a carrot; and caps for dishwashing liquid that had served as green “eyes”.

The kids explained to her that Frosty had melted but that it would snow again soon and he would “come back to life someday”.

“IT’S…NOT…FAIR!” she screeched, so that I could hear her from the opposite end of the house upstairs.

When I came back downstairs, I tried again to explain it to her. “The things of this world fade away,” I quoted to the older children, which of course went over her head.

It’s a lesson that children quickly learn; one that can leave them feeling disenchanted, depending on how their parents handle it.

[Here my eleven-year-old hops on my computer and inserts what she thinks my thoughts must be. I leave it because I find it extremely amusing.] I think that it should snow when I want it to snow so I can be happy and have my children not messing the house around so it would be clean and peaceful. Until they come in the house again ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it is messy again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Here my twelve-year-old takes a hold of my keyboard and, like her younger sister, comes frighteningly close to the truth of how I feel.] Although the kids mess up the house when they come in from the snow, the peacefulness that I experience when they are out of the house is beyond amazing. Therefore I wish that it would snow anytime I wanted it to. I think that it should be impossible for the snow to come in the house, and then this world would be perfect! Oh yes, and one more addition. That the snow “creations” never melt so that I won’t have to ever hear that snow melting is not fair ever again!!!!!! [Children’s insertions end here.]

Knowing that the world is imperfect, we can find beauty in nature and admire its Creator, knowing that what He has planned for us in everlasting life is way beyond the glimpse He offers us here. We can show our children this, by praising the beauty given us, and letting them know that, although it does not last here on earth, there is a greater beauty beyond our imagination that will go on and on. Snow that does not melt and yet does not make us cold. Leaves that change color and yet do not die and fall to the ground. Greenery that does not make us sneeze and our eyes water.

The stability of the family the child grows up in is yet another glimpse for them into the security of God’s love. As parents we cannot be the perfect Father that God is, but we can give them our unconditional love; the comfort they need as they discover the pain that is inevitable in this world; and the nurturing of their childlike wonder that we should try our best to emulate.

Everlasting Summer

An August Afternoon (Restrike Etching)

“Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.” - Charles Dickens

Reluctantly, my three-year-old and I pulled out the faded marigolds that have lined my driveway since August. She and I deadheaded the plants, putting the seeds away for safe-keeping until the spring. I was sad to see the color go, but happy to see the clean look of the driveway once the leaves and dead flowers were gone.

Usually, the seasons don’t come and go without warning. They ease in and out, and with relatively predictable timing. Still you hear people exclaiming their shock at the “sudden change” in weather.

Children and the elderly are like that too. People are always telling me it seemed like “yesterday” that their children were little. They say it happens when you “blink”.

When the kids went back to school in the fall, the school nurse remarked about how many inches my eldest daughter had shot up over the summer. I measured her and realized that she is taller than me. When did that happen?

An older friend or relative, after suffering through an illness for several months, passes away “suddenly”. From the outside, this is easy to see. From the inside, it is harder to be objective about the time as it passes.

I think of the seasons translating to human development as spring for birth, summer for young to middle-aged adult, fall for the elderly, and winter for death. There is no birth or dying in Heaven. Everyone will have new, perfect bodies and be in the prime of their development. When the universe is renewed at the time of Jesus’ coming, it will be like a one-time spring that turns into an everlasting summer.

Flowers will bloom and never fade! Leaves will bud and never fall off! There will be no weeding, for no plant will be deemed undesirable. We will walk around the garden of life praising God for ever for His Glory.

We will not be sad to watch our little ones grow up, or to watch our elderly die. We will not hesitate to form human bonds, for friendship will never die and neither will our friends.

In the section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church entitled “The Hope of the New Heaven and the New Earth” (section 1042), drawing on sacred scripture, we read:

“At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. After the universal judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul. The universe itself will be renewed:
The Church…will receive her perfection only in the flory of heaven, when will come the time of the renewal of all things. At that time, together with the human race, the universe itself, which is so closely related to man and which attains its destiny through him, will be perfectly re-established in Christ.”

Is there baseball in Heaven?

Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven, 1419

“Do you think there will be baseball games in Heaven?” I asked my husband over dinner.

“I don’t know.”

”I’m just postulating. What do you think?”

“I thought Heaven was an unknown,” he answered.

I was thinking about my Poppop. My father-in-law said he would miss him because he was so much fun and always made people laugh. I wondered if he was making God laugh up there.

I pictured him with a whole bunch of guys around him, all laughing at his stories. His dog Penny would be there, of course, along with a whole bunch of other dogs, because he loved dogs and they loved him back.

Then I saw my daughter in her Marlins shirt and thought of how he liked to watch the Marlins play the Mets, because he lived in Florida but was born a New Yorker. That made me wonder if they watch our games from up there, and perhaps play their own.

There’s no crying in baseball, my husband always tells my son, and there are no tears in Heaven either. So maybe they do play. And both sides always win.

Hebrews
Chapter 12

1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us
2
while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.

My Grandfather Has Passed Away

John S. Nagy, Sr., NYPD and veteran of war, is survived by his loving wife Delia Nagy, four children, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
My favorite memory of my Poppop is when we used to go walking with his little dog Penny and he would tell me stories. "You're funny, Poppop," I would say, and he would laugh and say, "You're funny, Lisa Bear."

I have several beautiful heirloom pieces of carpentry in my house that were made by him. My little cousin said that he went to join the great Carpenter in Heaven.

You can view a picture here of my grandparents together at their wedding anniversary.