Love and Losing

Typing words is no solace. One wonders how people for ages dealt with loss. Context matters, suffering relative to shifting needs and priorities.

But mind does not win this game. It tries, and should. But it can't, and this is no game.

One watches and feels. A beloved pet is "just a dog" some say, and they are barely right. Reducing does just that. Reduces. This dog is more -- was more, vastly more -- to us. More than "just," though I have no words for what that is. Not quite.

I watched him near the end, helpers good as can be. When he was gone the so many years, the life deeply shared, the real presence of an animal friend now gone -- it all came flowing in and tears rushed out.

There is real love in this world: felt, pursued, given, received, faulty, heroic, romantic, stoic. There is love and the most real is the most lived and the most learned. Real love takes real time. Love would rather die than lose its object. Yes? 

No.

"Better to love and lose than never love at all" is true. "The greatest of these is love."

Even love of a dog for us and of us for a dog.

It hurts to lose him. The feeling will long be with us. Home is not the same, daily routines have something missing, his being-with is no more and will never be again.

But we'd never know this love without the risk of losing. As some say, "Grief is the tax we pay for love." 

We will always miss Oreo. His loss reminds us love is real.