ABSURDITY (II)

I adopted a dog who lived in a cage as a breeder creature, who had likely never seen the sun or grass. His teeth were rotting, his frame was emaciated, his vocal cords were cruelly severed leaving his throat scarred, and he had a hernia. We fixed him up as best as we (and our vet) could. He cried for months through the night as he tried to figure out day from night, until one day, after I picked him up to hug him close for what seemed like the millionth time at 2 a.m., he decided to fall in love with me.

I loved him madly.

I lived in a mix of deep joy and fear: my heart was always so full that this little beast wanted to live attached to me, but it felt pre-emptively broken knowing that he was hardly in the best of health, and dogs have short life spans compared to humans as it is.

Being conscious of being a frail life form on this rock we call home, building a life with hopes and dreams and desires when things can go off piste any time no matter what we do, adopting old dogs with health issues and loving them madly, planning something - anything really - is all absurd.

And yet, the only way to go on is to be present, to try, and to feel it all. If you’ve read the text that accompanies some of my other work, you might know I find value in the work of Albert Camus. His Sisyphus goes onwards and upwards with full knowledge of the absurdity. That knowledge is the power that fuels him.

“The struggle,” Camus writes, “is enough to fill a man’s heart.” That is the thing of it all.

My dog died in December 2023. I loved him to the max, and he loved me.

This is part of a series.

36h x 36w x 0.75d (inches); acrylic and oil pastels on wood-backed stretched canvas