Compassion

In response to

The Murderer’s Dog by Ron Carey

It came towards us as if the world was still

The same; tail-thumping the summer grass.

A boy next to me shouted, It's His dog!

A hail of stones followed it down the road.

We chased it into fields of gorse and bracken

Where, squeezing through gaps half the size

Of its body, it hung pieces of its sleek coat.

Late in the evening it turned towards Town.

It ran up Main Street; breaking the quiet fix

Of the Church, past the Police Station, past

Other dogs, barking mad in their flower-filled

Prisons; past the house of the dead child.

John Joe's mother scrambled onto the road.

Here! Help me! It's here. Here! Quick!

We stampeded through the house, shaking

China cups from dreams of immortality.

In the long shadows of Gleeson's backyard

It stood at bay, its legs in a barbed confusion

Of wire. When it saw us it howled in despair.

After a while it stopped and lay in the dirt.

Compassion moved among us, searching

Each nameless heart. But then it rolled its lips

Into a hideous, wolfish smile, revealing at last

Its true nature – the nature of its master.

Someone should have warned it not to snarl

Or snap, that it only made things worse.

Andy handed me a shovel thick with mud.

I brought it down hard, with all my strength.

Before we left it at the door of the dead child,

We dragged it through the streets on the steel

Palm of the shovel; showers of sparks falling

Like meteorites in the dark planet of its eye.

My very real compassion hardens under the barrage of insults, grievances, imagined slights, downright paranoia, the twisting of the truth.

It is so hard to witness the suffering of someone one loves so intensely, but my compassion is tempered by hurt, anger, frustration, bruised ego, a sense of gross injustice.

In the end, he has almost brought about what he claimed to feel and yet I still ache with sadness and compassion for his pain and believe that life has not always treated him well or fairly, even though his approach and behaviour may not have helped.

I often feel compassion towards animals, sometimes more that I do towards human beings. Maybe it has to do with the fact that humans understand situations: even when we are not in control we mostly understand what is happening... Or maybe not. Children are similar to animals in a way; their awareness of the world is not fully formed, they trust unconditionally, love unconditionally. Like dogs. They expect to be loved and nurtured, even when the love they seek isn't there, the hope of love remains. The hope... The hope... I remember the feeling of hope, it was there until the end. The hope that HE could do the right thing, the hope that he would do what was expected of him, the way I do with my children, with my dog, loving it because he expects it, because it asks for nothing in return, because it stands by me whether I feed it or not... HE, not IT. He. I look after HIM. I look after THEM more than I look after myself. But isn't that what being a paren is all about?

Would I be able to kill an animal if it was the only way to kill some of the pain from loss? Would I lose my compassion if I lost one of my children? Perhaps the I in the poem was also a father struggling with grief, trying to kill his pain.

We project, we hurt others to fix ourselves. And sometimes we hurt ourselves to fix ourselves.

Isn't that what you did?

The man was accused of beating his wife. She had had an affair and he was wild with anger, jealousy and hatred. He didn’t take any responsibility for the fact that she had strayed, although his behaviour had contributed to her seeking solace in another’s arms.

As he caught sight of her, his face clouded, becoming black with emotion; hair awry, shoulders trembling, legs almost giving way. The clothes he wore were all black.

She looked at him as if for the first time and realised how much he had suffered, and still suffered. His actions were born not from her actions alone, but from his treatment at the hands of others many years ago. Taunted and bullied as a child for being a bit different. Always having to prove himself. This was the abiding flavour of their marriage.

A wave of understanding flooded her mind and her heart filled with love and compassion for him, and for herself.

Through my many years if irresponsible living I have come to be grateful for the compassion others have granted me. A good example may be the time I was in The Royal Navy and at an inconvenient moment my father died at home, far from my naval base. I was granted compassionate leave to go and help my mother and attend my father’s funeral. In the office where I was issued with a Travel Warrant to cover the cost of the return journey I was asked if I could fund the rest of this unexpected excursion. Upon answering “ No “ a South African officer quite spontaneously gave me a £10 note. Surprised, I explained that it would be difficult to repay his generosity, to which he replied, “You can pay me back between now and Kingdom Come.” We never saw each other again and that act of compassion was never properly acknowledged.

Barbed compassion. Barbed wire. Falling from the tree, into barbed wire. Ripping, tearing of the flesh, exposing the gore and gush. My mother always blamed the barbed wire “she fell into barbed wire”. But that was an afterthought. It was the branch wot done it! Childish innocence, ignorance, of the weight I bore, the fragility of things, the point of snap, and coming crashing down. Dazed and confused. Down but not out. My love for trees undiminished. Somehow I ran home or did I? I was not alone but I don’t remember who was with me. Usually Nicola my best friend. But I’m not sure that was the case that day. My mother would usually ask “were you showing off, climbing high?...pride comes before a fall… blah, blah, blah”. I don’t think she did that day. Too much in shock that she actually reacted in an efficient, focused manner. Whether I walked home, or they/she came and got me, I don’t know. But suddenly I was in the car, a wet flannel pressed to my arm. My mother beside me, driving to the hospital. I dazed, amazed, that this is my mother with enough presence of mind to do so. At the hospital, I look at the wall as the stitches go in. It feels less painful that way. I hear the voices behind me. The doctor saying how brave I am. My mother flirting, preening herself, laughing as if she is being complimented. The shock has left her, she has regained herself. Sometimes compassion is hard to come by or fleeting. The loneliness of the hospital, stark white wall, sits alongside me and my mother in the car. Sometimes that sense of connection between flannel and flesh is an endless moment in my life-time, other times it is a journey towards sterility, anger. My friends gather round me with interest and concern when I return. Weeks later after having my stitches out, they lie small and black, like dismembered insects, on a pristine white handkerchief for all to see. A source of pride. The memory of pain secreted away.