Dear Barb,
 
How funny you should have a ferret named Hope.  She doesn't really know
she's sick.  I mean, she knows that sometimes she feels bad.  But she
doesn't understand 'sick'.  I've always wondered what animals think.
I've come to the conclusion that they're not bound to this stupidity.
They just go through it day by day.  To them there's no other way to do
it.  They don't know about positive or negative thinking.  Heck, they
don't even know about thinking.  They just are what they are.
 
Not us.  We have complicated schematics.  We attach ourselves to other
things.  We worry, we cry, we're up, we're down... our minds are always
going.  We try to imagine how long we might live.  We worry that we won't
make some arbitrary goal that we imagine we should.  And if we don't meet
our own expectations we get angry and think that we have failed and that
this thing might not have even been worth doing.  Our sweet, sweet grapes
tend to go sour.
 
So if this is true, why are we doing it?  To achieve world peace?  No.
Not hardly.
 
For the smell of oranges.  For the rush of serotonin on a bright sunshiny
day.  For a herd of wet ferrets lounging on towels waiting for us when
we're sick.  The little gifts we get for just a little while.  Then
they're off and we have to wait for them to come around again.  And they
eventually do.  Not always when or how we'd want, but we already knew
that.  Ironically, what makes it worthwhile is that it's always a
surprise.
 
Watch Hope when she eats next time.  She's not eating so she'll make it
another year.  She's eating because it's today and she's hungry.  Right
now.  What a wonderful thing.  It's one of those little gifts that she'll
get today.  Look her in the eyes when you hold her today.  Feel her face
against your face.  Feel her heart beating.  That will be one of yours.
 
I know that she's terribly sick and that eventually she'll leave you.
She was going to do that anyways, you know.  I thought about doing that,
myself.  Leaving.  I guess I wasn't ready to give up all those little
gifts just yet.  I'm not going to achieve world peace.  But I can still
open my eyes to sunshine in the morning and make myself a cup of tea.
Nothing better, sometimes...
 
I wish you and Hope the best from the bottom of my heart.
 
Roary
Albuquerque, NM
[Posted in FML issue 4742]