The Love That Never Dies

A wonderful friend shared with me today the sharp sorrow of losing an animal companion. His words were severe but deeply honest. I understand.

I am now old, and despite my long travels to faraway places, I always return to my babies. Every reunion carved an indelible mark into my soul. I can relate to every feeling a person experiences, because the relationship is very much like a marriage. The love they offer us is the purest form of reverence, fidelity, and loyalty.

So much has been written about the devotion between people and their furry friends that it seems almost impossible to add anything new. Take dogs. They love so intensely they would literally risk their lives to protect their humans. That has been demonstrated time and time again.

I'll address the cats in a bit. Their fascination is so profound and mysterious it could fill volumes. But they're not interchangeable. Dogs and cats are like apples and oranges.

These species are living proof of that.

Perhaps we'll never fully fathom the inborn intelligence of such animals. That doesn't concern me. We inhabit a world brimming with enigmas, and this mystery is simply one more.

We don't even thoroughly understand ourselves, so why insist on fully understanding other beings?

Simply being in the presence of something wondrous is enough.

I'll insist on calling it magic.

They are more than magical. The look in their eyes is magical. Their sublime presence, wanting nothing, is also magical. Their excitement when it's time to go out together is magical. Their joy, their trust, their affection, given ad libitum and with no conditions attached, is nothing short of extraordinary.

One of the profound unfairnesses of this beautiful life of ours is that they depart before us. Their time here is roughly a fourth or a fifth of ours.

Noooooo!

It can't be.

We refuse to accept that aberration. We curse the heavens in our rage and disbelief.

And yet...

They're gone.

Just like that.

Hardly anything else in life feels so terribly wrong, so infinitely unfair.

And then we remember the words of the Buddha. Impermanence. Attachment. We seek solace in those incredibly wise precepts. We need them so desperately that we hold the book tightly against our chest, soaking the pages with our tears.

Life is impermanence.

Nothing lasts, and everything changes.

Like the mandalas.

Everything is circular. Everything flows with the divinity of love. A love that never truly ceases to exist, for love is energy. It changes form, perhaps, but it does not die.

I like to believe that those fur babies who have left us are waiting somewhere beyond our understanding, just as they always have. And one day they will welcome us exactly as they always did.

With the eyes of absolute, unconditional love.

The irrepressible love of cats coming next...

Love,

René