|
|
A Living Love
By Martin Scott Kosins
If you ever love an animal, there are 3 days in your life you will always remember
The first is a day, blessed with happiness, when you bring home your young new friend. You
may have spent weeks deciding on a breed. You may have asked numerous opinions of many
vets, or done long research in finding a breeder. Or, perhaps in a fleeting moment, you
may have just chosen that silly looking mutt in a sheltersimply because something in
its eyes reached your heart. But when you bring that chosen pet home, and watch it
explore, and claim its special place in your hall or front roomand when you feel it
brush against you for the first timeit instills a feeling of pure love you will
carry with you through the many years to come.
The second day will occur eight or nine or ten years later. It will be a day like any
other. Routine and unexceptional. But, for a surprising instant, you will look at your
longtime friend and see age where you once saw youth. You will see slow deliberate steps
where you once saw energy. And you will see sleep when you once saw activity. So you will
begin to adjust your friends dietand you may add a pill or two to her food.
And you may feel a growing fear deep within yourself, which bodes of a coming emptiness.
And you will feel this uneasy feeling, on and off, until the third day finally arrives.
And on this dayif your friend and whatever higher being you believe in have not
decided for you, then you will be faced with making a decision of your ownon behalf
of your lifelong friend, and with the guidance of your own deepest Spirit. But whichever
way your friend eventually leaves youyou will feel as long as a single star in the
dark night. If you are wise, you will let the tears flow as freely and as often as they
must. And if you are typical, you will find that not many in your circle of family or
friends will be able to understand your grief, or comfort you.
But if you are true to the love of the pet you cherished through the many joy-filled
years, you may find that a soula bit smaller in size than your ownseems to
walk with you, at times, during the lonely days to come. And at moments when you least
expect anything out of the ordinary to happen, you may feel something brush against your
legvery very lightly. And looking down at the place where your dear, perhaps
dearest, friend used to lieyou will remember those three significant days. The
memory will most likely to be painful, and leave an ache in your heart.
As time passes the ache will come and go as if it has a life of its own. You will both
reject it and it, and it may confuse you. If you reject it, it will depress you. If you
embrace it, it will deepen you. Either way, it will still be an ache.
But there will be, I assure you, a third day whenalong with the memory of your
petand piercing through the heaviness in your heartthere will come a
realization that belongs only to you. It will be as unique and strong as our relationship
with each animal we have loved, and lost. This realization takes the form of a Living
Lovelike the heavenly scent of a rose that remains after the petals have wilted,
this Love will remain and growand be there for us to remember. It is a love we have
earned. It is the legacy our pets leave us when they go. And it is a gift we may keep with
us as long as we live. It is a Love which is ours alone. And until we ourselves leave,
perhaps to join our Beloved Petsit is a Love we will always possess. |
|
|
|