A Melancholy Afternoon

I picked up SooNee's ashes today.  Like HwangJae and BokSoon, I had her cremated and her ashes placed in a wooden box. I gathered all the dogs' boxes and just looked at them for a moment.

HwangJae and SooNee were cremated by Circle of Life while BokSoon was cremated by Friends Forever so there are two different types of boxes.

When HwangJae died from bloat on 1/1/2008,  I made the decision to cremate HwangJae and keep his ashes.  I had reasoned that I didn't want to release them at a home that I knew I wasn't going to stay at.  I was going to release them on my dog property once I got one.  Now, I don't believe in animalistic guardian spirits or anything of that sort.  It was just my way of expressing my remembrance of him.  Even though I wasn't going to continue his Jindo line, he was really the beginning of it all.  

When BokSoon died from bloat on 3/9/2010, I was in the middle of trying to purchase a house so it was an easy decision to also cremate her.   

When SooNee died from her brain tumor on 5/9/2011, I had finally gotten a modest dog property.  It should have been time to release all the dogs' ashes.  It's only ashes.  The dogs are no longer there.  But I find myself holding back and trying to figure out why.  Perhaps I have subconscious hopes of getting an even bigger dog property with a higher dog limit.  Perhaps I'm resisting the finality of it all.  Maybe I'm turning into one of those crazy dog ladies that talk to urns.  (I hope not.) 

For now, I've decided to postpone the release until after I'm finished landscaping.  Afterall, it wouldn't be very respectful to place the ashes in an area that may turn out to be the next dog's potty area.