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--simple 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.
