Jada gave me a gift this morning. Being a puppy, she rarely will come to me to sit still or to sleep; especially when I am at the computer. But today, she came and put her feet up on my lap, demanding attention. I picked her up. Usually she would wiggle and struggle, give me a few licks and jump down. Today, she snuggled in and closed her eyes. She was sleepy. So, relishing the moment, I caressed her soft fur and watched as her eyelids grew heavy and her breathing slowed. I thought about the things I needed to get done and briefly contemplated putting her down. But, then I thought of just taking this time, this quiet time, to cuddle my puppy and to sit quietly.
It is strange to find that it is hard to sit quietly. To just take the time to sit and pet the dog without doing anything. I make myself feel guilty all the time for not getting things done, for spending too much time on the computer, for sleeping in, for reading too much, for not getting all the things on my to-do list done. But, this was her gift to me, I thought as I held her. My eyes misted with tears of love and gratitude. I reached over and turned on the media player to listen to Alison Krauss and her hauntingly sweet voice.
As I listened to the words, and felt the soft fur and warmth of Jada, I felt an overwhelming feeling of sadness and loss; of broken dreams, of goals not reached, sadness for regrets, for the loss of a love that I had hoped would happen, for the lack of the ability to return the love that was given me, for the lost years of my life that I had drifted through.
Though Jada didn’t plan it, she has given me a gift of time; a space in-between all the chores and to-do lists; a space of time to sit and feel, to mourn the loss of much, and to grieve. Sometimes we need to take time to feel the loss, to move through it, in order to move on. Decisions can be difficult to make if you are not fully awake. The problems that I have had in my past with decision making have been because I was not awake. I am finding that the more awake I am, the more aware I am of the choices that I need to make and the right way to do it. This present-moment awareness is difficult stuff. Much easier it is, to walk through life on autopilot. To actually take the time to feel the present moment, in all its pain and sadness and loss, is hard to do.
Though the times have been few, these “spaces in-between” are like small windows into the reality of life. Of my life. I have often had moments of clarity where I have epiphanies, and I see what I need to do. But, then life is difficult and it is much easier to sleep walk, so I drift back into autopilot and months to years pass before I once again have a “moment”. I call these my “spaces in-between.”
So, I thank my puppy Jada. For giving me a moment; a moment to savor the soft warmth of her sleepiness; a moment to sit quietly and think; a moment to become aware of the need to grieve the loss of a dream of love ever after; the loss of a wish for a happy marriage; the loss of a need to feel love and to return love. It was not meant to be….. this time. Maybe someday it will be. To ignore the sadness of the loss is to not heal and I just need to get through it and learn from it.
Thank you, Jada.
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