To Be Loved By a Dog

Okay.  I read Marley and Me two years ago.  I actually own a copy of the book, but I don't know if I'm getting it back, because my ex-fiance never sent me my stuff.  Anyway.  I cried and cried and cried and cried when I read the book.  Even if you haven't read it, if you know it's about a dog's life, you know how it's going to end.  I knew how it was going to end and it was still devastating.  (Also, other than a few Bill Bryson books I really like, Marley and Me is really the only non-fiction I've read in the last few years.)  Anyway, I watched the movie tonight, finally.  We've had it sitting there for almost a year, and I never had the chance to watch it, but finally decided it would be a good idea tonight while I was folding laundry.

That would be a big fat NO.  That was a horrible idea.  I didn't stop crying from the second vet visit on; I even cuddled up on the floor with Shadow and Sunshine and cried on them after the movie ended.  (I'm the only person who is home and awake.)  My eyes are swollen and scratchy and I have a headache.  I don't know what I'm going to do when it's time for these guys, if I'm this upset over a dog I've never met.

I wish I could put into words the kind of love I feel for dogs - any dog, really, but especially Shadow and Sunshine.  By all intents and purposes, they're mine, too, and I .. I don't love them like I'd love a child, or a friend, or how I love J and S and M and Girl Child and the Toddler.  It's a completely different kind of love, and you know they think the sun shines out of everyone's butt (except maybe the Toddler's because he steps on them so much) in this house.  They love you when you've had a bad day, when you've gained weight, when you're mad at them for chewing up your favorite flip flops (Sunshine has eaten something like three pairs of my flip flops) - they don't care, they will love you anyway.  They don't care if you don't have any money or can't fold a fitted sheet to save your life or if you can only cook one thing, because you're you and they love you.

That's a kind of magic, in a way, to experience that kind of love.  I'm so glad to have loved a dog, to be given the very special opportunity that so many take for granted to be loved by a dog.

Now that I'm crying again, I think I'll go hug the furry people some more.