Learning to love through the little things
Jul 17 '03
The Bottom Line Pre-euthanasia attempt at catharsis. Don't mind me.
I am watching the sun rise over Lake Michigan, pale pink and soft salmon seeping up into the sky over the water. It's a beautiful morning, and it is difficult knowing that in three hours, as soon as the veterinary clinic opens, I'll call them and ask for an appointment to have my friend euthanized.
My friend is a rat named Pippin. He has been a part of my life for sixteen months. He weighs 1.06 pounds, though he weighed a bit more before cancer ravaged his little body. He is black with a white underbelly and white paws-- or formerly white paws. They are now reddened with porphyrin, the discharge that rats' noses produce when the animal is stressed. Porphyrin encircles his large black eyes as well, and makes it look as if he is crying.
It's odd that something so little can impact a person so much.
Pippin is part of the reason that I have decided to become a veterinarian. I realized that the world needs more exotics vets as I spent hours calling around to animal hospitals searching for someone who would see Pippin and Merry, his cagemate. For a little rat to have the power to completely alter a person's career path is impressive.
But Pippin accomplished far more than just that. In sixteen short months in my life, he has taught me a great deal about love.
He has loved unconditionally, and wholly. Every time I have held him, he has rewarded my attention with kisses and bruxxes and cuddles. Even as I held him on the veterinarian's exam table yesterday, he cuddled against my hand and licked it weakly. I know that he has loved me.
And now, as I face the reality of letting him go, I realize just how much I love him.
It is easy to love a human, or a dog, or a parrot, or a cat or a horse or the like. But it's also dangerously easy to fall in love with something little-- something that you knew from the beginning would probably die within two or three years. It was easy, and I did it-- and I love him, and now I need to let him go.
I can't help but wonder what this means. If I can love something so little so deeply, I wonder what my heart is capable of when it comes to larger things. I wonder if the depth of pain that I feel right now is only a prelude to deeper pain. I wonder if the depth of love is a prelude to deeper love. I wonder if the love and loss of the little things in our lives aren't a teaching tool of whatever god there might be, so that we know that we love, and that we know the pangs of loss, and so that we come to appreciate the life within all things.
And I wonder if the whole world might be better if everyone took the time to love something little at least once.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
LilScamp
|
|
Member: Sara
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Reviews written: 94
Trusted by: 76 members
About Me:
I'm back-- and starting down the road to veterinary school! Critters will be my life.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.