Respect & Like

This is so where I am right now, especially in light of everything going on in our world. For God sakes, People, let’s have some respect… for our fellow man. For diversity. For agreeing to disagree.

This is yet another area that I take lessons from our amazing animals… Recently, I was scrolling through some pictures from 2019. We had kind of a crappy year in ’19 with the death of 3 of our animals. Huge kicks in the gut, for sure.

But I stumbled upon a photo we took of our last little pooch to die, Crisco. It was a beautiful, sunny day on October 1, 2019, the day we made the decision to help him out of a really sucky quality-of-life life. He didn’t deserve to exist like that, and we had a practical discussion about just that, so it was our tough duty as loving pet parents to do something about it. October 1^st will always be a day for us that a really, really bright light was extinguished in our house as he was such a shiny little spirit. Rotten, but shiny.

I digress… as I was scrolling through some old photos, I came across a photo from October 2^nd. We had kept Crisco home after he was put to peace, as we weren’t quite ready physically for our new normal. People deserve a wake, a time to prepare to say good-bye, so he certainly deserved that too.

As I sat outside on that day, watching the sun come up with his precious body near me, I reminisced about everything that had happened during the time he was with us. It was nearly 16.5 years, so there were a lot of ups, downs, and so much to share.

I sipped my coffee, sitting, taking in the moment and giving my sad heart space to be just that. I didn’t want to miss one meaningful last moment with him still physically present in our home, so I let my heart do the work on what the “needs” were at that moment.

As I sat there, the air around me changed. I happened to look over and see Rudy and Albert quietly sitting near Crisco, seemingly to pay their respects. Let’s be crystal clear about something, none of them had ANY use for each other. Crisco hated every other four-legged being that came into our home, and he made that VERY clear. So, looking over and seeing these two beings sitting quietly near his body, paying their own sorts of respect, I was moved.

How many times do we as humans act out of respect like that, for something we don’t like?

I stared at what was happening for the longest time. It was such a lesson for me, and quite frankly for our country!

Word for the day, People… Respect. Let’s just do that to each other and turn this tide around of dis-respect, as that one feels awful.  Word. Respect!