Ugly-Beautiful

February 27, 2024

When I started writing my evening musings eleven years ago, I followed the “Joy Dare Collection,” a calendar of daily gratitude prompts. Some were easy, some made me think outside the box, and some were just plain difficult. This morning’s prompt was “3 Ugly-Beautiful Gifts.” 

Today is our granddaughter Josephine’s 19th birthday. She brings us her special brand of joy as one of our more independent granddaughters, who aspires to be a commercial airline pilot. In the meantime, she is a volleyball scholarship student at Edinboro University, popping in from time to time on weekends and breaks to say hello before she’s off on another adventure. She is the beautiful part of the ugly-beautiful duo.

There are ugly things going on all around the world, some of which affect us directly, and others only indirectly. I’d rather not comment on those. Instead, the ugly-beautiful today was the death of our Emma. Thirteen years ago when we brought her home from the Warren pet rescue, Linda thought she would be my dog, but Emma had other ideas. She was Linda’s dog through and through.

We watched her go from repeatedly chasing balls the full length of our yard to letting the next generation do her running, but when we opened the back door at her incessant whining, she was off like a rocket, splashing across the creek after something we never could see. In the past few weeks, we had to coax her just to go outside, but she was mobile right to the end. We are grateful we didn’t have to put her down.

You can see why this is “ugly-beautiful.” Kahlil Gibran said it well when he wrote that sorrow and joy are intimately intertwined, and we only grieve for what has been our delight. I don’t write these words to garner sympathy, but instead to affirm what I have believed for years, that we have a choice in matters like this: we can rail against death, or be grateful for the life we shared these past thirteen years. Emma brought us much joy, and we cherish and are grateful for the memories on this ugly-beautiful day.