COMPANIONS OF THE HEART

Received this tale in an email from my nephew Bruce Barrett just before I started to write my thought for this week and, therefore, I have no idea who to credit as the creator. However, the tale fits so well with what I was thinking about today, I just had to include it in my Thoughts for the week.

An old cowboy was riding his trusty horse followed by his faithful dog along an unfamiliar road. The man was enjoying the new scenery, when he suddenly remembered dying, and realized that the dog beside him had been dead for years, as had his horse.

Confused, he wondered what was happening, and where the trail was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall that looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch topped by a golden letter "H" that glowed in the sunlight.

Standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like gold.

He rode toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. Parched and tired out by his journey, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'

'This is Heaven, sir,' the man answered.

'Wow! Would you happen to have some water?' the man asked.

'Of course sir, come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up.'

As the gate began to open, the cowboy asked, 'Can I bring my partners, too?'

'I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets.'

The cowboy thought for a moment, then turned back to the road and continued riding, his dog trotting by his side.

After another long ride, at the top of another hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a ranch gate that looked as if it had never been closed. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

'Excuse me,' he called to the man. 'Do you have any water?'

'Sure, there's a pump right over there. Help yourself.'

'How about my friends here?' the traveler gestured to the dog and his horse.

'Of course! They look thirsty, too,' said the man.

The trio went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with buckets beside it. The traveler filled a cup and the buckets with wonderfully cool water and took a long drink, as did his horse and dog.

When they were full, he walked back to the man who was still standing by the tree. 'What do you call this place?' the traveler asked.

'This is Heaven,' he answered.

'That's confusing,' the traveler said. 'The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.'

'Oh, you mean the place with the glitzy, gold street and fake pearly gates? That's hell.

'Doesn't it make you angry when they use your name like that?'

'Not at all, actually, we're happy they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.'

When I was just starting my formal educational experience (since I didn’t have the opportunity to attend kindergarten, it must have been during my first or second year of elementary school at Roy Elementary) I had the last real pet that I ever allowed myself to bond with and love.

We lived on a small bit of ground which allowed my father to enjoy a large garden. It was so large that he bought a horse to help him plow and prepare the ground for planting. We had chickens which roamed freely and occasionally met their demise on Roy road which went in front of our property. We had a family Irish setter which was my personal companion. We were constant companions as we adventured through the rows of the garden and around the small pasture playing the cowboy with his trusty companion.

One day we walked up Roy road to the Bamberger Station (a small commuter train which travelled between Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah, when we lived in Roy in the 1940’s) and my wonderful companion followed us to the station. I wanted to run him back home, but my mother and sister insisted that we didn’t have time to wait for the next Bamberger. I told my companion to go home and he started in that direction. When we returned that evening he was nowhere to be found. A few days later a good neighbor told us that he had found my buddy by the tracks and had taken him home and buried him.

While I was growing up I was never able to allow myself to become attached to another pet. This was fine with my mother since when we left Roy we always lived in houses with small yards and she didn’t believe that animals should be allowed in the house. Also, my pleadings for another dog were never very heart felt nor sincere.

As I now look back I can see that my lack of personal experiences with live pets being replaced with vicarious movie type experiences was my loss, a loss which in many ways I will always regret and which can never be recovered.

I do remember a few gold fish and maybe a turtle, but never a pet who became a buddy and a companion.

TO BE CONTINUED