This is so true. Tommy's video was wonderful. What a good boy. You're still in my thoughts and prayers Jess. {hugs}
A while back, I read a book by Dean Koontz called A Big Little Life (thanks to Staci's recommendation and bringing it to my attention). It is about Dean's love of dogs and in particular his special golden retriever, Trixie. As the chapters wound down to the final one and I came to the inevitable sad end that is unavoidable, he said some profound statements that deeply touched me.
I remembered this today, and found the book so that I could reread those passages. I would like to share a couple of them here that had particular meaning to me and may also to you.
"No matter how close we are to another person, few human relationships are as free from strife, disagreement, and frustration as is the relationship you have with a good dog. Few human beings give of themselves to another as a dog gives of itself. I also suspect that we cherish dogs because their unblemished souls make us wish--consciously or unconsciously--that we were as innocent as they are, and make us yearn for a place where innocence is universal and where the meanness, the betrayals, and the cruelties of this world are unknown."
"Dogs' lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you're going to lose a dog, and there's going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can't support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There's such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the other illusions we allow ourselves and for the mistakes we make because of those illusions."
Maybe that helps give an answer to the agonizing "why" when our hearts are torn in two at the passing of these angels on earth.
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