Peso

The night I lost my first dog, Nimue, I sat on the porch of the vet's office and just howled in pain. I was so overwhelmed by the loss, that I couldn't handle it any other way. My best friend J. came to get me from the vet's parking lot. I couldn't drive even the few blocks back home. I was hysterical with grief and guilt. J. stayed with me that night, finally winding up giving me a tranquilizer when I seemed unable to get control of myself. I went straight to my room and slept like the dead. The next morning I woke up with the first lines of this A.A. Milne poem in my head. I didn't know any more than the first two lines. I hadn't seen or even thought about the poem since I was a child, but in my drugged and grief stricken state you found it for me, Brain. You pulled it up out of long forgotten files and offered it up to help me make sense of just what it was that I had lost. The hole was so big and ugly, the only way I could look at it was through the soft, safe, blur of a nursery rhyme. With the first two lines going constantly through my head I went and found a copy of Now We Are Six and read the rest of the poem.

And now I'm reading it again, for Peso.

The circumstances are much different, and yet there is some continuity. Peso was sixteen and it was time. She knew it, and I was ready to accept the inevitable. As before I turned to my best friend J., and as before she comforted me, this time she only needed to provide company and conversation. I am calmer this time. I am no longer left a one where before there were two. Now our little family is three instead of four. It's lonely, but that's to be expected. For sixteen year there was always me, and there was always you.

US TWO
by A. A. Milne

Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
"Where are you going today?" says Pooh:
"Well that's very odd cos I was too.
Let's go together," say Pooh, say he.
"Let's go together," says Pooh.

"What's twice eleven?" I said to Pooh.
("Twice what?" said Pooh to me.)
"I think it ought to be twenty-two."
"just what I think myself." said Pooh.
"It wasn't an easy sum to do.
But that's what it is," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what it is," said Pooh.

"Let's look for dragons," I said to Pooh.
"Yes let's, " said Pooh to Me.
We crossed the river and found a few-
"Yes those are dragons alright," said Pooh.
"as soon as I saw their beaks I knew.
That's what they are, " said Pooh said he.
"That's what they are," said Pooh.

'Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Pooh.
"That's right," said Pooh to me.
"I'm not afraid," said Pooh,
And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo!
Silly old dragons!"- and off they flew.
"I wasn't afraid," said Pooh, said he.
"I'm never afraid with you."

So wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Pooh,
"If it wasn't for you, and Pooh said:"True,
"It isn't much fun for One, but Two
Can stick together," says Pooh, says he.
"That's how it is," says Pooh.