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| Niña & Niño |
Sometimes I have discovered important matters, that suddenly come up to my memory, when the people who might satisfy my curiousity are all dead. That is frustrating. It can be worse but there is a pleasant salving solution at the end.
We humans have statistically longer lifespans than dogs and cats. My Rosemary and I had many cats beginning in 1977. Like all pets they invariably went to their maker and I found myself burying them in our garden inside a shoe box. We quickly found out that the quickest solution to a dead cat which ameliorated our grief was a brand new SPCA cat.
Now at age 80 I look at my 10-year-old Niño and Niña and wonder who will go first, they or me.
But this process has given me a reward. I lived with Rosemary for 52 years and while I wrote a blog about which one of us would go first, I thought as I did when I was 8, that the only people who died or won the lottery were neighbours.
When Rosemary died on December 9 2020 I immediately realized that I had almost taken her for granted and did not regularly tell her about my love and affection for her. It was her death, her loss, that brought this terrible sense of guilt.
But with Niño and Niña, who patiently let me sleep in the
morning, cuddle by me when I turn off the light in the evening; how I feel
guilty if I don’t take Niño for his daily walk around the block, I now
understand that not only do I not take them for granted but I consciously appreciate
and note their presence at all moments. I feel good and happy about it.
I have a regret as I alluded above. I wish I had known that when Rosemary was alive.
