Every time...

…I know it is going to happen.  Before I even arrive at the doorstep, I am ready for the onslaught.  He smiles at me.  Yes.  He really smiles a broad, bonafide, teeth-bearing grin that squishes up his adoring little face while he wiggles all over.  She leaps as high as she stands tall and shrieks, and can barely contain herself.  She wants to give me kisses and kisses and more and more kisses.  This happens to me every time I arrive at my decidedly humble abode.  If I have been gone for a weekend, it happens.  If I have been gone all day, it happens.  If I have been gone for the fifteen minutes it takes me to get my fountain Diet Coke on Saturday mornings, it happens.  Without fail.  Without judgment.  Thankfully, I do not very often have bad days, but on the rare occasion that I do, this event – perpetual and unbridled – certainly pushes it away and brings a smile to me I cannot refuse.  Those sweet, eager eyes awaiting my reciprocation make me warm and fuzzy.  One pair is a dark chocolate brown that sparkles; The other, a speckled mossy green that shines.  Isn’t the way our dogs love us a miraculous thing?

I had gone my entire adult life without knowing the love of a puppy and honestly, as I contemplate it now, I don’t know how I ever did.  I’ll admit it; not so long ago, I was bewildered by pet owners who talked about their dogs as if they were children.   Christmas presents?  For your dog?  Come on! 

Here is my situation now:  I cannot even make a grocery trip to Meijer without battling the urge to bring something home for my “babies” every single trip; I hurry home to them when I have been gone;  I love to watch them frolic and play with each other;  I discuss their differing personalities and quirks;  They sleep with me and crowd the bed; I call them “brother and sister”; I refer to us as “Mommy and Daddy” ; Our parents are “Grandma and Grandpa”;  Oh.  Wait. I have become that person who once bewildered me.

I am bewildered by it, but I also know now that I cannot help it. I need it. I need them.

They remind me that life really is an exciting, intoxicating miracle. Why the heck WOULDN’T we be oh so very excited to see each other at the end of every day? Why DON’T we shriek and leap and smile every time people arrive at our homes?  We have a home.  We have friends and loved ones.  Why the heck DON’T we all shriek and leap and smile?

I think we should try.  Maybe we should greet the people who populate our lives with the same kind of perpetual, accepting, and unbridled enthusiasm that our fur babies do.  Without fail.  Without judgement.  Every time.