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Living Love
by Martin Scot Kosins
If you ever love an animal, there are three 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 shelter - simply 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 room - and when
you feel it brush against you for the first time - it 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 where you once saw activity.
So you will begin to adjust your friend's diet - and 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 day - if your friend and God have not decided for you,
then you will be faced with making a decision of your own - on
behalf of your lifelong friend, and with the guidance of your own
deepest Spirit.
But whichever way your friend eventually leaves you- - you will
feel as alone 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 soul - a bit smaller
in size than your own - seems to walk with you, at times, during
the lonely days to come.
And at moments when you least expect anything our of the
ordinary to happen, you may feel something brush against your
leg - very very lightly.
And looking down at the place where your dear, perhaps dearest,
friend used to lay - you will remember those three significant days.
The memory will most likely be painful, and leave an ache in your
heart - As time passes the ache will come and go as it has a life
of its own.
You will both reject it and embrace 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 fourth day when - along with the
memory of your pet - and piercing through the heaviness in your
heart - there 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
Love - like the heavenly scent of a rose that remains after the
petals have wilted, this Love will remain and grow - and 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 Pets - it is a Love
that we will always possess.
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