Dear Ferret Folks-

Yesterday morning my house was in a bustling whirl. We were loading
up my van to drive my father and brother to the train station so that
they could go back home to Pennsylvania.The Noble Allis Chompers, my
excellent dog was so very excited, there is nothing that she enjoys
more than a ride in the van with her people. She had been told that
yes, she was coming. She danced and her eyes sparkled, even though she
had been having a difficult morning. One of her back legs was shattered
in a car accident many years ago, and it pains her on cold, damp
mornings like the one we were having. It takes a while for that
buffered aspirin to kick in, and she wasn't there, yet.

Then, there was a miscommunication. Some of us thought that Allis was
already outside waiting for the van doors to be opened so that she
could jump inside. She wasn't, she was still inside. And when my father
closed the front door behind himself, Allis was left inside, bitterly
disappointed and upset. And hurting.

I relate these ordinary details because they became important later on.
They lead to a chain of events that brought me to Tufts Small Animal
Hospital, to a chilly waiting room where a very kind and very young
veterinarian explained that although there were a number of things that
she and her co-workers might try, she suspected that they only had
about a ten percent chance of saving Ping is He's life. I heard her
describe the first one and I winced. No, nobody was going to do that to
my small friend. No. She thought it wise that he be released from this
life and so did I, and so he was. So he was, because love is bigger
than I am.

That morning Allis was hurting and upset, supremely frustrated on the
wrong side of the door and that is when Ping decided that it would be
*fun* to bite her. He did that from time to time. It always made her
release a particularly indignant bellow. Sometimes she'd punch him
with one front paw and he would scurry beneath the nearest piece of
furniture, laughing all the way. Not this time. He bit her, and she bit
him back. And I still love my dog, who doesn't understand that she did
anything wrong, because love is bigger than I am.

Love is bigger than I am. It is wiser, more generous, gracious and
unselfish in a way that I can never hope to be. I have loved well in
my life, even though I have been dealt some cruel disappointments.
Sometimes I think that I am the sum total of those disappointments,
rather than the product of my particular strengths of character or
wisdom. I have not always lived well, but I have loved well, and true
love is informative. I have learned that real love is huge. Bigger than
disappointments or regrets, bigger than words like "should" or "might"
or "almost." Love is so big that I was able to let go of my Ping is He.
So big that I can forgive the Noble Allis Chompers. So big that I can
forgive the people who don't understand, and think things like "He was
just an animal, after all." So big that I don't have to live my life
divided into two mutually antagonistic camps, the one that remembers
that Ping lived every day joyously, and the barren one that is mired
in endless loops of "what if."

Love is so big that it allowed me to share Ping is He with you all...
his absurd love of dripping ham wrappers, his un-natural pleasure in
white-hot wasabi peas, the lengths he would go to for a mouth full of
chocolate, his firm belief that the only good chicken was a dead
chicken.

By the time you read this my good friend will be wrapped in a piece of
the bedding that came with him from the MAFF shelter (Massachusetts
Ferret Friends). That rose floral quilted set with the soft fleece
lining was always his favourite. Love is so big that it gives me the
courage to say to the MAFF ladies "Ping is gone", even though I know
that I know it will make them weep. I understand. I have wept, too. But
love is bigger than all of us together, than the strongest of us alone.

Ping is He will be laid to rest beside my pink flowering almond bush,
right next to France, the Fricken Pigmy hedgehog. And although it is a
beautiful, shining late summer day full of cricket song and the whisper
of the breeze through the long grass, love is big enough to let me see
the beauty of this day, and not just that little office and the earnest
young vet. I see Ping is He's shining brown eyes, the way that he would
say "Let's play!" Love is big enough to let me remember, always.

Alexandra in MA

Many thanks to the fine people at the Worcester Cat and Bird Hospital
April Armstrong Campbell
The Tufts Small Animal Hospital, Grafton, MA

[Posted in FML 6077]