Sleeping
I’m surprised to find you sleeping under my desk. I had been working and hadn’t noticed you there, either didn’t see you come in or had already forgotten it. I hear you sigh and shift before I see you. I am so happy that you are there, are still here, comfortably resting, but also sad that I hadn’t realized, been aware of you. This is how you are in my life, constant and present, even when I get too busy and don’t remember to notice, and this is how you will be, until the day when finally you are not.
I’ve felt this too, the sudden awareness of Lexi’s presence. Last night I was watching something that made me cry on Netflix, and she came over and put her head in my lap and I was stroking her and staring at the screen and it took me a minute to realize she was there to make sure I was okay, to comfort me.
Constant and present. Yes.
I’ve found the opposite to be true as well, that it’s hard to “unnotice,” to “unremember” them when they aren’t physically present, from the mundane (like when I’m staying with my parents and I keep hearing dog tags or I’m careful when I get up to check that I don’t step on them on the floor, even though the dogs aren’t there with me) to the tragic (like when Obi died, and for months, maybe close to a full year, I couldn’t shake the sense of his shadow presence, and even now, I sometimes sense him right there, which is so heartbreaking because I can’t see him, touch him). Wishing you peace, comfort with the grief that lack of physical presence brings, which I know you are still feeling, still noticing. They linger, don’t they? ♥
I think you have captured so well the parallel lives the lead alongside the human-race, but somehow separate – thank you
Yes, parallel lives, and at least with my dogs, they are always there, waiting for me to notice, but relatively content in their waiting, doing their own thing in the meantime.
Love this! My pets become as important as the air I breathe sometimes hard to notice, but definitely necessary for me to have a happy life.
Melanie
Exactly, Melanie! Now that I have dogs (wanted one SO bad as a kid, but wasn’t allowed, have had them the past eleven years or so), I can’t imagine living without a warm furry around.
It is interesting about the not noticing, Jill. I came home the other day and was greeted by some of Kobi’s mischief. Immediately scolding him, he scooted out the interior garage door before I noticed. I sat down to write thank you notes for an interview I’d just returned from when I wondered why I hadn’t seen him for a while. I looked in his house, called his name … nothing. Suddenly I thought to open the door to the garage and there he was waiting patiently, not having made a peep, to be let in. Of course, I couldn’t help but feel guilty that I hadn’t noticed. These furry friends are incredibly resilient. Ah, the lessons they offer … patience, forgiveness, cheerfully bouncing back. Thanks for your post of heightened awareness. ;->
Dexter has gotten himself locked in the garage so many times (we keep their big tub of food out there, so he always has to go “check on it”), and one time he fell asleep before we realized he was missing 🙂