Obituary for Fenton Johnson, the Dog

Obituary for Fenton Johnson, the Dog

Writer and writing maven Cynthia Newberry Martin maintains a blog in which writers chronicle our daily lives.  She asked me to write the July entry, with a prompt from Annie Dillard:  “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” 

But when I sat down to write, I was preoccupied with the transition of my namesake, writer and teacher and dear friend Pam Houston’s magnificent Irish wolfhound Fenton Johnson, “from hither to yon,” as I put in in the piece.  And so how I spent that particular day was in writing his obituary, which provided a means to consider the great matter, the interconnectedness of “hither” and “yon,” how death is just another name for what in brighter  modes and on brighter days we call life.  Here’s a link to the piece, including some great photos of the noble beast:

http://catchingdays.cynthianewberrymartin.com/2014/07/01/how-we-spend-our-days-fenton-johnson/