110 days ago by nikkiandlulu | 81 views | 6 barks

A question someone asked me today....

A very dear friend of mine asked me a question today: “Why are dogs better than children?” Of course my first response was quick “They are not better, they are different.”

I have just suffered the great loss of my incredible seventeen year old Elle. She was perhaps the most beautiful creature to ever grace my life. She opened my heart, she taught me patience and understanding, she taught me sympathy, she taught me how to care for others when they were down, alone, afraid, sick or too old and frail to care for themselves.

With this question in mind I began to explore my own minds thoughts on dogs vs. children. There are of course many humorous reasons why as a childless divorced woman that I could give you, but my first thoughts remain the same they are different not better or worse. There is no competition between the two although my ex-husband may argue that I think dogs are better than husbands but that’s a whole other topic.

I can tell you that I would love to have a child someone that reflected my own self, someone that could inherit a little bit of my eccentric side and someone that would look to me for comfort and safety and the answers to all of life’s questions. Unfortunately that was not in the cards for me. What I was blessed with was a wonderful creature with beautiful blue eyes and a spirit that let you know that God or someone greater than us existed. That the universe was large and diverse but somehow we found each other and became each other’s hearts and souls.

If you were to offer me today to go back and change the way things were, to give back my beautiful blessing I would emphatically tell you NO! There is not a moment of my time with her I would have missed for the world!

My friend is so afraid that if I am to ever be blessed with another creature like Elle it may be very hard for me since we must accept the very difficult fact that these wonderful creatures do not live as long as we do. Again, I have to answer with a very simple “The pain I feel today is immense but the love that I was blessed with is far stronger, far greater than any other experience I have had in this life.” So I guess my answer would be the same as any mother who has lost her beloved child. God blesses us and we need to live each moment with others as if it were our last, and when we look back after the tears have subsided (if only for a moment) we are grateful for the time we were given, we are grateful for the love that we shared and somewhere in this great big wonderful world of ours my little girl is running free with all the other children that were taken much to early from this earth. Their spirits are free, proud and strong as they await the ones they love, the ones that miss them, the ones that mourn them and the ones that promise to continue to grow as human beings in their honor.