Seven Visits to River on the Passing of my Dog

with guest contributor D.J. White

I was a participant in the Living Waters group during Spring 2025, sitting with the American River in the Central Valley of California. During the first meeting of our small group, my ten-year-old dog Riley, close companion in what is otherwise a very solitary life, was on the chair next to me. By that evening, he was dead. I was shattered. My experiences with Living Waters over the next weeks were very much focused on this loss and trying to find a way to move through it.

I.

River, today I bring you my emptiness. The long moment after exhaling.

I haven’t spoken to anyone since my dog passed away five days ago. I am stunned, again and again, by his absence. I whisper his name as I walk through the house. Riley, Riley, Riley, Riley.

Silence.

Now, I sit. This is all I have. Just sitting.

Two mallards streak over the water, a line as straight as a ruler.

Pipevine swallowtails, a jagged fluttering, black shimmering against the bushes.

Sounds echoing between the riverbanks. Swallows and swifts. Chickadee, towhee, goose and heron. Woodpecker, eagle.

I feel shame, being so empty in the presence of such abundance. What can I dare to ask for here? Every question feels so small.

So I wait. Asking nothing. One breath. The next.

I watch the ripples, lavish in their expression.

I listen, river persistent in its calling. Birdsong everywhere. Ripples of sound in water and air.

I notice a place in the water, softly churning where two currents meet, that looks like part of a heart.

A heart torn open and outpouring.

A mallard and hen swim into the water heart. She rubs her beak along her feathers as he chuckles softly. Then a startling splash of wings and clash of voices, sharp and urgent, and he rises up from the river, grabs her neck in his beak, and mounts her.

I am astonished. It is as if the two ducks swam right into the broke-open heart to show me, in my numbing loss, the noisy insistence of life, the flapping and chuckling and splashing of it all. Once they are done, they swim upstream.

I inhale and allow a low humming to come as I release my breath. Tentative, low in my throat, only one note at first, then, slowly, two notes, then three, four, and I find a small willingness to voice myself again, offering song to River, modal, minor, Mixolydian, Phrygian.

Nada brahma. The world is sound.

My grief is sound. My emptiness is sound.

I feel grateful to be reminded of this. I hum to myself as I walk home, improvising up and down the scale, a quiet comforting. The vibrations, like birdsong, like water.

II.

Time dissolves. Dawn, dusk, morning, afternoon, night, all a blur. I look for him everywhere, my little dog. I feel him, so certainly, behind me. I turn. Nothing.

There is only this, pulling me into the world – my little ritual, my walk to River edge.

The place where I have been sitting is flooded today, so I follow a small line, an almost invisible parting of the tall grasses, and find a tiny cove with a bit of sandy beach.

The moment I sit down, two Canada Geese swim up and float in the water directly in front of me and at the same time a large trout, as golden as an orange, flings himself into the air with welcome, hurling himself out of the river into a beautiful arc.

Welcome. You are in the right place.

The female goose dabbles in the mud near my feet; her mate walks out of the water and stands next to me. We watch her together. From time to time he looks at me, fully present, fully connected.

I feel seen. Held in someone’s gaze. Acknowledged and welcomed. Life to life.

I feel so strongly the loss of my beloved dog. Yet here, I feel so clearly acknowledged by Goose. Let’s keep company for awhile, he seems to be saying.

Let this in. We are here. You are not alone.

III.

Canada Goose is here today. Alone. He swims upstream, honking, honking. Who is he calling to, this solitary goose? Twenty minutes later, he floats past me, his calls the only sound in the air. Again, he swims upstream, this time pausing to make a large circle in front of me.

Why are you alone, Goose? Where is your mate? Your rowdy team? He floats there for a moment, gives one loud call, and paddles away, his voice plaintive-sounding to my ears, fading, fading, and then gone.

I know this longing, this yearning. I still call my dog’s name as I walk through the house. I call, again and again, as if I could summon him back into form, warm and wiggling in my arms.

You and me, Goose, hurling our calls into the air, waiting for a reply.

IV.

River is unusually quiet. Not even the swallows are flying about. Barely a sound. I watch the ripples on the water, the flowing colors and patterns moving in all directions. I feel how expectant I am for something to show up, waiting for something to happen, something other than what is here right now.

Just us, River says.

I close my eyes and settle in, slowly letting go, breathing with River, no past, no future, just this moment.

When I open my eyes, the water currents and a visible surge of vibrations in the air above them are streaming directly towards me. It is so intense I can only stay open to it for a few moments and have to close my eyes. Each time I open them to look, it is there, this tangible flow of color and energy that I feel as an embrace.

Can I let myself be loved by this River? I felt the contrary pulls within me, as strong as tides, the longing to be loved and the resistance pushing against it, my fear of love.

Since my dog died, I’ve wondered if I will ever find my heart again, love as pure and present as I felt with him. Yet here, River says to me, There is nothing you have to find, you are loved. And I breathe and I take it in.

Then, immediately, there is a shift: A strong breeze starts blowing, very cold. A swallow swoops in from the river and circles over my head. A belted kingfisher grabs a fish from the water and lands on a large log across from me. A double-crested cormorant flies straight up the river like a dark arrow; five buffleheads float downstream below him in a tidy row. Two red-shouldered hawks circle each other, high above the water, wings spread, spinning and soaring and falling, calling to each other, a beautiful aerial dance.

This is an extraordinary display, the river offering its wealth of life, its stunning vibrancy.

Generous, is a word that comes to mind as I sit there. River, abundant in its love.

There is no end to the depth of your loving and being loved, it is everywhere, it is infinite; here, I will show you.

V.

Woodpeckers call as I walk the path down to the river. White egret lands on the opposite bank as I sit in my spot. I’ve found some safety here, able to let my heart soften, letting in a tentative sense of welcomeness, of trust, of love.

Mallard swims by. I ask him, do you know where Riley is? Have you seen my little dog?

And, saying this, I crumple forward with a pain so acute in my heart it takes my breath away. I feel like I am floundering in inconsolable grief and I will never, fully, fit in this world.

Hawk, close, behind me, up in a tree. Kee-kee-kee-kee. In the white alder tree at my side, Anna’s hummingbirds, shimmering like water. And I cannot stop crying.

Then, on my left, a male mallard walks out of the water and sits on the ground right beside me, so close I could touch him on the head. He closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

On my right, a female mallard swims up with her two ducklings. She climbs onto the shore and nestles close to me. Her babies settle near her. All of them go to sleep.

I sit for another hour. Surrounded by sleeping Ducks. What is this?

Trust. Acceptance. Grace.

I reflect on Anne Poelina’s words in our Living Waters meeting, how animals, rivers, birds, all of the living presences, can teach us how to be more fully human.

Maybe, this is it, my never fitting in. My outsiderness. Maybe I haven’t truly known how to be a human being.

And here, the more-than-human world gently, graciously, showing me the way.

VI.

Strange noises from the water flowing under the overgrown bank across the river.

River Otters. Two of them, their little heads bobbing. One climbs out of the water and rolls on the grass along the bank. The other swims upstream and floats downstream, over and over, right in front of me.

I am so excited to see the river Otters. I walk back and forth on the bank, watching them. I am bursting to share it. I notice a man wading along the muddy shore in a small cove next to me. Normally, I would ignore him, pull back and hide. But today, I surprise myself.

“Otters!” I call to him.

The man looks up and sees me. He walks closer, climbs over a log and stands right next to me. I don’t feel afraid. I don’t move away. We watch the Otters together until they disappear. Then, he turns and walks back to his little cove. Just that. That lovely moment together.

I sit and think of how new this is for me, calling out to this man, wanting to share something with him, and how River provided a gentle nudging for it to happen.

It’s been softening me, River, making me more permeable, calling me to open, to connect, in wider and wider ways, like its own expanding ripples, its swelling sounds.

VII.

Our Living Waters group has just ended. I offer flowers to the river, one for each of the people in our small group, and then one for Riley, my little dog. I wonder if I’ll continue to come here without the structure and support of the workshop. If I’ll be able to hold on to this fragile sense of heart and love and connection.

Walking home, down an overgrown rocky trail that parallels the river, I see great Blue Heron standing in a place where herons do not usually stand.

He looks at me, but doesn’t move.

I continue to walk forward until finally, he lifts his wings and raises into the air.

Where he was standing, I see a spiral of rocks: riverstone spiraling into the dry grasses.

It is everywhere, this magic, spiraling into the world, requesting our presence, inviting us in, pointing the way.