A Living Love

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, watch it explore, and claim its
special place in your hall or
front room--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.
You will see sleep when 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.

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 out 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 to be painful, and leave an ache
in your heart--As time passes the ache will come and go as if
t 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 we will always possess.

By Martin Scot Kosins