Sweet Sugar

You know, I got to thinking this morning. I have been reading tales all my life about the quandary of the immortal man or woman who falls in love with a mortal. The characters vary and the stories may be funny or frightful or sad, but the central tenet remains that the immortal must watch the mortal beloved grow up, get older, and eventually sicken and die. In a way, in relationship to our little fur persons, we are like those immortals. In our lives with them, there is always that knowledge that great love will bring the consequence of great sadness, and the stronger the love, the more wrenching is the loss. But we love anyway, without stinting, to whatever degree that little creature blesses us with beauty, affection, amusement, perplexity, even vexation. All we can do is take care of them, respond to them as they respond to us, watch in awe as they give us a glimpse of what it is to be like to be other yet beloved. They make us better people, they comfort us and amuse us, and yes, they love us in return. And at the end of their lives, they teach us the value of mercy and what it means to let go, to think the unthinkable, to lose the irreplaceable. And they are irreplaceable. Each life leaves an indelible spark in memory, a spark that, eventually, will cause us to smile as we lean to stroke another of those unique, mortal, oh so brightly burning spirits.

In memory of Sugar Cooper, ruddy abyssinian, beloved of Maura and Stu