Rescue Journal

i am pondering rose this morning...

Carol  ·  Jan. 21, 2010

she is laying on her bed a few feet away from me with her chin on her left foot...she is pondering me back with her one eye. staying comfortably in bed is a big step forward for her...a few weeks ago she had to have her head in my hands whenever she could.

rose is an incredibly good creature, she never does a bad or wrong thing (the profound bowel and bladder incontinence is physically beyond any choice she can possibly make. her spine and hips are so destroyed, it is in all ways a complete physical disability.)

but what is interesting about rose is this....she craves kindness and caring and she knows she will get it from me (and everyone else who meets her.) but rose doesn't really believe she deserves it. she no longer expects to be hurt, she expects to find the gentle touch that she seeks. she is learning to trust that kindness is always here.

but i do think that rose does not believe that she is a good dog. i think she now thinks she is a lucky dog to find what she seeks. but she does not know that the good feeling she finds from us was born from the intrinsic goodness living inside of her.

rose, like me sometimes (and probably you...) is unaware of the real beauty inside of her. to a certain extent, we all seek our world's mirror reflections to determine who we are. and we do this not only because we are self aware, but we need to see ourself in conjunction with the world.

rose's past abuse did not destroy her ability to be self aware...it just cemented her belief that her self inside is irrelevant to her and the world. so kindness to rose, is like a cookie to copper....it assauges his actual hunger but never makes his stomach feel full.
rose craves the outside kindness but never really feels it become the kindness that is so much a part of her.

someone forever turned off the natural, god given light of simply being rose...now she needs us to turn on the external light of feeling good for her.

life has to be pretty cruel to create a black hole where no matter how much light is sucked in from the outside, it forever remains dark.

poor rose...we can all see the light shining from inside of her, but she can't...she thinks the light comes from us.

Comments

Marisa

One of your most beautiful posts. Sometimes your writing cuts to the very core of an animal's being and I mean both human and non-human animals.