Lonesome Sad Mournful Sounds

What has my mind wandering down this path was the lonesome howl of a dog that misses its owner. Four thirty this morning, a dog at my neighbor’s boarding kennel began its wailing. It was overcome with the thought it was abandoned and left alone to be cared for by a stranger. Torn out of its loving and familiar home, it shared its misery and loneliness with the world and unfortunately me.

Another sound that resonates deeply with my emotion is the calling of the wild Canadian geese as they fly in their v-shaped formation, heading south for the winter. Somehow, their honking high overhead in the cobalt sky of autumn seems so much different and more sad than their calls when they fly north on their return trip to their breeding grounds.
Another sound that stirs my emotions is the far-off wail of a passing train. I remember as a child laying in my bed on a summer night and hearing the locomotive's warning call pour through my open bedroom window.

My grandmother Rebecca Miner said as she faced the grief of making arrangements to bury my uncle Ted, “No mother should have to bury their child.” Those mournful words nearly broke my heart. Hearing her say them with tears in her eyes and listening to her weep at the graveside are memories that even time cannot erase.

At this Independence Day, I think of all the mothers that have wept at the gravesides of their sons and daughters, children who gave their lives to protect our freedoms and our borders. Tied to that thought is the sound of Taps being bugled at the graveside ceremony of a soldier or sailor being laid to rest. Softly, sadly that mournful send-off tribute somehow seems little payment for their sacrifice.