Notes towards a Kaddish for my dog…..still circling around it, like him, a black and white border collie now herding in heaven….

My Jewish dog of many years, is crossing over tomorrow: A Kaddish for Jakob, the most clownish dog I’ve known and even ate his own tail!

Rest ,then run in Peace and adventure….an obituary for my dog: Thankful for each creature I get privileged to know. What a gift life is by itself, much less getting to know the creatures and co-tend (they us, us them) as we go….as my friend says, we don’t really deserve dogs!

Jakob our oldest and last standing dog is ready to cross over. He’s been a part of several art communities across continents and our hearts for some time!
He is a humorist who has traveled with us through many seasons of our life’s journey.
He is jewish having been born with a built in yarmulke.
As a clown, he has helped us laugh during these difficult times we all live in, and helped us never take ourselves too seriously.
He will be missed. Yet, hopefully he will get to hang out soon with his two border collie sisters who are by now herding angels!
He’s been a very bonded and faithful dog to me (and even traveled with us to Europe!), and put up with being in many of my silent films, as he was a perfect black and white silent film star.
I’ll miss my side kick. I sort of regret teaching him to play dead for my silly films. But now I hope he plays his way through death into his next. May, as my mentor said in his last years, we have to play or rehearse death before we die. Death is not the end, as Dylan sang, but more a crossing over into a great and kind unknown.
Jakob also can sit with me in my art studio for a whole painting. Bored, but happy that I’m creating something. He sits with me often as a make art.
Had a dream this week, as I often do, when I must make a hard call, or pay attention to something well (ie in my innermost spirit), a few nights ago, where he came to me and said he was ready for his next adventure.
He said it, as in a silent film, without speaking or even barking. Like Buster Keaton, just let his presence tell the tale! Ok, buddy, I’ll help you cross over.
See you soon, to my Jewish dog who lived to nearly 16 years, outlasting all our other collies by a mile or so. And who stayed funny until the end!
He was a pure breed border collie from a ranching family, and herded even squirrels til the end.
But at the very end, I’ve been herding him. He is ready to herd above, I’m sure. Not sure what needs herding up there, but he’ll find it!
Lastly, his favorite music that I would play was gypsy music. He was nomadic like me, and had a circus spirit.
Alas, the merrymakers down here are getting fewer. But, I’m sure we will all return, and maybe they need them over there now. But, we could certainly use a few more clowns down here these days as well.
A clown exit is a difficult lament, in that it needs to be funny as well as sad. I’ve done lots of funerals as I grew up the son of a minister and a wedding director, and funerals are often more meaningful than weddings. But, a clown’s funeral needs to lead to the type of laugher that makes one cry. Like life or Klezmer music—if you speed it up, it works at weddings, slow it down, at funerals. At least mine and Jakob’s have been, a type of Klezmer song.
God bless the merrymakers below and above! And may they all receive my dog Jakob in Love! He’s a clown worth keeping around! But it’s his time to move on to the Really Big Top! We have a pretty good one down here for the carneys and freaks and those who just want to be, but not as good or grand as that one above, I’m sure!
And for the record, this dog ate his own tail, which a whole other tale to tell.
But he literally ate his own tail. We still have the X-rays! The doctors were shocked. He was staying at a kennel which flooded at the time. He got anxious, and just chewed off his own tail. Not the best response, but a unique one!
I buried my first dog Frieda, but let me just say burying an animal in Texas soil is hard. This one will be cremated. May his ashes rise up from the earth in black and white and color, and bring us more Peace and Humor and a rainbow of hope, in hard times. He would want that.
And maybe, he will get back his tail for doing so well on earth!
Even Jeremiah, called forth the merrymakers! Jakob was one. Maybe he’ll meet Jeremiah!
Of course, there is a heaven for animals, but they slip in easier under Grace’s watch than most of us. He will steal the show, I’m sure! And get his tail back.