The Cherry Tree Memorial - How A Group of Gun Dogs Taught Us About Loyalty, Loss and Hope
Why was I standing by a freshly dug hole in the park, surrounded by a small group of my friends and their dogs?
The answer lay in the cherry sapling nearby, its thin bare twigs reaching towards the sky like fingers grasping for hope.
The air in the park that morning was heavy with the smell of soil and sadness. If given time, nature could work her mysterious miracles. Season after season, year after year, the beauty of the pink blossom would come to the tree’s barrenness.
All it would take is time. But I had no time.
‘Go on Pete, say some words.’
Words can feel futile when standing by a hole in the ground.
But words often are all that’s left to express how we feel. It’s in moments like these, the sacred is close if we would stop and notice. These are the moments when the very essence of our limited time here on earth seems so precious. We can feel them heavy like velvet, but barbed with the pain of loss.
I glanced at the surrounding faces, looking to me to speak words which might have seeds of hope within them. Words that, too, given time, might make some sense of the loss and confusion we all felt. For among us, our good friend, time had ended.
For all of us, one day, time will end too.
So I began.
Shelagh would have loved this. All of us, and all our dogs together...
A Pack of Friends: The Dog Walkers' Daily Ritual
Twenty years have passed since I was standing with a group of dog walkers around a hole in the park. The council that morning dug the hole to make room for the cherry tree that was about to be planted. The earth from the hole piled high next to us all. A pack of dogs laid down in twos and threes or sat next to their owners.
For over three years, every day, same time, same paths of the park, we had walked together. I was the only man in the group. Gentle teasing and cheeky banter oiled smooth daily strolls with our dogs. The pack comprised only gun dogs - Labradors, Spaniels and Golden Retrievers, mine included. Not a pheasant in sight, to scurry or aim for. The odd squirrel would dare a run from cover now and then. The only thing we would shoot would be the breeze.
Shelagh: The Heart of the Group
In her early sixties, Shelagh’s short grey hair was as spiky as her wit. Her curious, enthusiastic character overflowed like the Angel Falls, rushing over us with wonder at the ever-changing natural world, her black lab always at her heels. Sarah wouldn’t leave her side, save for a swim in the brook, returning like a slick oiled otter.
When Spring came to the park, the trails of pink and white blossoms would hang like leftover Christmas baubles. Our dogs would romp through the petal rain with unbridled abandonment, aware of only the present moment as dogs teach us that vital truth about living. What joy to live unconcerned with what anyone thinks, only to be lost in a moment's beauty. That was Shelagh.
Shelagh was full of the joy of life and living, and forever making it overflow with laughter. The joker and storyteller of the dog walkers. Tales of her mishaps, the wry observation of one of us, her humour never with malice, just fun.
Shelagh was forthright and direct, more like a Terrier than a gundog. It would cut through the small talk on our walks. She stood no nonsense, and we loved her all the more for it. As a self appointed organiser of our group, she brought coffee and cake for us and the dogs to celebrate the bandstand opening. She always included everyone in everything.
When Laughter Fades: Shelagh's Battle with Cancer
Shelagh’s once spritely walks around the park slowed as her back ‘played her up.’ As time marched on, Shelagh’s effervescent vitality faded from spring to winter.
They had found cancer in her spine. Shelagh was a fighter. She had guts. Shelagh bravely never hid the truth from anybody. Her determination to fight was as unrelenting as her sinister enemy within.
One day, she didn’t turn up. And, as the days passed on, Shelagh and Sarah the lab never walked with us and our dogs again.
I wish I had known the day when it was the last time we would have walked together. I’d have taken more time to notice the moments, to listen with more attention, to see the eternal in the temporal. I suppose we should treat each moment as the last, as someday it will be. The last thank you, the last kiss, the last, ‘I love you.’ But we don’t. We imagine life will continue on.
We missed Shelagh’s vitality, vigour and vim for brightening even the darkest and dankest of dog walking days. The park was much the same. The cherry trees bloomed in spring. But something then on was always missing.
I kept in touch with Shelagh and visited her. Taking my dog, we’d chat. She kept optimistic, and hopeful, waiting for the days when she could join us again. Wanting to know the latest news, and what the trees in the park looked like.
The dogs would play, and we would chat. She was renowned for her love of conversation.
We talked about eternity, and what it might be like. Shelagh bravely asked the questions about life you only ask when you’re facing death. To sit with someone and ask those questions is to dwell in a sacred space.
In such moments hangs eternity.
A few times, I have had the honour of sharing the space between life and death with someone, knowing that I will stand next to a coffin and speak words of eulogy and legacy about them.
It is a profoundly spiritual place. It’s what Celtic Christians call a ‘Thin Place.’
A physical space where the spiritual distance between heaven and earth feels is at its closest. You do not find these so often in a cathedral or temple, more on mountains or when you act like a dog dancing through cherry blossom rain with abandonment.
Shelagh decided she wanted a ‘living funeral.’ ‘I don’t want people to say nice things about me when I am dead. I want to hear them!’
I want laughter and love, music and dancing. ‘I don’t know if I would have ever known how many people loved me, if it hadn’t been for this,’ was her brave expression of gratitude for life.
Shelagh and her family chose a date. Her prognosis was six months at best. A favoured venue picked, caterers arranged, band booked, the date close to her wedding anniversary only a couple of weeks ahead.
With her family and friends, including our group of dog walkers, however the dogs absent this time, we joined in the magnificence of that memorial I will never forget. The music played till the early hours, Shelagh dancing with her husband in a wheelchair all night.
Shelagh died unexpectedly a few days later.
As if completing her course, Shelagh no longer needed the body that had held her, so she let it set off, skipping through the cherry blossoms into eternity. I imagine and hope so.
A Final Farewell: Planting Memories And A Dog’s Tribute
The park keeper lifted and planted the cherry tree into the hole. The dog walkers stood around. I said a few words.
At the moment I finished, Shelagh’s dog, Sarah, padded towards the mound of earth, stooped, and paid tribute to her owner in dog fashion. Then, as we all watched in amazement, one by one, all the other dogs lined up and forming a queue, each cocking a leg or stooping on the mound of earth waiting to cover the roots.
The pile of earth next to us, it too, became a ‘Thin Place,’ and at the same moment, eternity became temporal again.
I forget the words I said. But I won’t forget Shelagh.
We’d paid for a memorial plaque placed under the cherry tree where the blossom rain falls on it every spring.
Now, it’s forever a memorial to Shelagh, and a ‘Thin Place’ in the park.
Twenty Years On: The Blossoming of Remembrance
I pass ‘Shelagh’s tree’ every day. The tree’s branches are thick and strong now, twenty seasons of rain and sun have seen to that.
And every spring I stand underneath the raining blossoms, kicking the petals for Shelagh, and in that moment hangs eternity.
I’ve never taken the blossom in the park for granted since.
It is with grateful thanks to Shelagh’s family and their permission to be able to share this story and photo of the memorial. Thank you.
Sundial Wisdom - In This Moment Hangs Eternity
Life Story Writing Prompts
What's been a ‘thin place’ in your life - a space where you feel closest to something greater than yourself? Do you return their often?
If you could leave behind a single piece of wisdom, like the sundial's ‘In this moment hangs eternity,’ what would it be?
How has a loss in your life changed the way you appreciate everyday moments?
If you could choose a living memorial like the cherry tree, what would it be and why?
What's a story about you that you hope your friends will tell long after you're gone?
The Sundial Series FREE Worksheets.
Do you want to create a collection of your thoughts, memories and stories? Download a free worksheet to keep for this post - Paws and Petals: The Touching Story Behind a Dog’s Walker’s Memorial.
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