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]