What do you do when your best friend is faithful, fierce and four-legged? You love it as unconditionally as it loves you. You guard it with the same fervent loyalty as it guards you and devote yourself to it, even when it pees on your favorite chair or chews your best pair of shoes.
A survivor faces her biggest challenge
In 2008 I lost my marriage, my home and bits and pieces of my heart. I was shattered. I thought that I was a survivor. I survived childhood trauma, a mental health diagnosis, the loss of my mother, a car accident, said goodbye to a son as he headed to Iraq; and I even survived when burglarized in a newly rented apartment. But my biggest challenge, however, was the loneliness that awaited me each night after work.
I turned on the television, the radio and also tried my hand at singing and dancing. Neither of them helped. The loneliness was always there waiting.
Abigail meets her new friend
I remember going to work, sitting at my desk deep in paper work and deep in thought, when in sauntered a noisy little bundle of fur. I jumped up to see how it could have possibly gotten in or who was its owner.
There stood my son grinning from ear to ear. “Is he mine?”, I asked while scooping him up. “Is he mine?” I asked a second time.
“Yeah, ma. He’s yours.”
Tears of happiness slithered down my face onto that fuzzy little ball. He squirmed to get away. Realizing his efforts were futile, he relaxed and started licking my face. What joy!
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| My Pet is My Wellness Tool. |
Eight years later I still enjoy my faithful, fierce and four-legged friend. His name is Zion an overly protective chubby little yorkie that no longer chews shoes and only occasionally lifts his leg toward my favorite chair. But most importantly, from the moment he walked into my office loneliness was gone when I got home.
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