A writer writes, right?

So this whole little experiment has been to see or rather explore the bounds of my personal creativity. To determine what, how and where I would like to share myself with the world, or at least my little part of it. The woman who encouraged me in this direction (a blog IS the baby step in this instance) said to figure out WHY you are pulled to this. She said that it would be important to know WHY so that when obstacles came, it would be easy to stay the course. I politely acknowledged what she had to say. After all, it certainly sounds wise. But to tell the truth, I thought, "Really? Think about WHY you want to write? A writer writes, right? And what could possibly deter a writer from writing, except maybe sloth or poor time management."

As with most things, the Universe is always ready with an answer. I had been waiting for a very long time to tell the story of my beloved Frankie. Such a remarkable experience in my life to have been blessed with this amazing animal when it was never on my radar in the first place. So -- I did just that -- wrote the tender love story of my heart.

This must be the IT, I thought. The message that I will share with other people: The way to develop and use unconditional love to make our lives more meaningful.

I have learned from my pets that the gift of unconditional love is not necessarily evident to those who receive it, but it is completely life changing to us when we give it. People have shared for years that they received unconditional love from their pets. That was not really my experience. My sweet girl came to me pretty aloof. I would catch the occasional connection in her eyes, but mostly she kept to herself. She started out very compliant and as I had never been a pet owner, I thought that this was how it would always be. One day, though, after she got her footing in our family, I came home to what can only be described as a scene from a Disney movie gone bad. The down cushion from one of our "special" chairs had been torn to shreds. Down feathers were EVERYWHERE and even as the remnants of the good chair were poofing from her mouth, she looked at me with innocent eyes that said "Mama, where have you been? You should have seen what happened here!" I was devastated. I felt so personally injured and wondered how she could do this "to" me? I had learned so little about how to have a long term relationship with an animal and I was left confused, frustrated and desperate. What I did know was that everything had been cemented between the two of us with a leash and a pair of running shoes so that's what we did. I put on my shoes, pulled my hair back, put Frankie on her pink lead and left the house sobbing. I walked and cried and talked. She was completely unaffected. I wanted with ever fiber of my being to "understand" why she had done this. As I walked and cried and talked, I got more and more angry. As we came around another corner, I was certain that there was some drastic outcome for the chair incident and was working on what to tell my husband, what I was going to be willing to accept and actually starting to think that he might not want to keep her in our family. Only to hear a woman screaming at and wailing on her dog. The tears of anger quickly gave way to complete and total acceptance. I slipped down to the nearest curb, wrapped my arms around my pup and sobbed. I knew in that moment that she was not going anywhere -- down cushions be damned.

I had, for a most dramatic moment in my life come into acceptance and unconditional love of another living being. And nothing that has ever happened since has changed the way I feel about my girl. Even two weeks ago when the "hunter" instinct in her took over and a small fluffy neighborhood pet was the unfortunate victim.

What it has done, however, is change the way I see myself. I am back to needing to define or identify the WHY. I had such lofty thoughts about why and how I would begin to craft and share a "message." It was intended to be a message of hope and comfort and now I am seeing that the only way I can possibly do that is to take in all these lessons that come to me from the Universe. I am struck today by the amount of grace it takes to heal a broken or wounded heart. The wonderous thing for me is that Grace really is an unlimited resource available to each of us simply by receiving.

Throughout the past two weeks as I have struggled with my family to come to terms with a truly awful thing, my message today is that this spiritual quest did not arrive on the angel wings I expected, but in a very Chop Wood, Carry Water way. By being present here and now, I feel aligned with a much greater global suffering and am humbled by the miraculous way this suffering is healing my soul. Amen.