Tiny Animals I bring four Animal Crackers with me into the study, pick one up and say softly to BuDa-behind-my-eye, “BuDa, this is a tiny hippopotamus.” I offer it carefully to the air. I pick up another Animal Cracker and speak confidentially to BuDa-in-my-memory as if revealing a secret between us, “BuDa, this is a tiny rhinoceros.” I love watching his keen anticipation. He takes each Animal Cracker gently into his mouth and chews it with relish. He knows that I usually offer just two; he hesitates briefly, just in case there is a third, then lies down at my feet. By now I am heart broken and my tears well up and out and down my cheek. Yet I give thanks to the Creator of dogs and humans, especially brindle Boxers who remind me of the Boxer named Gretchen of my childhood, who died chasing a car when I was in fourth grade. She disappeared one day without a trace. It was the only time I remember my mother crying. I don't remember crying, but perhaps my heart has remembered the deep, unattended sadness. I have wanted to own a Boxer for many years; unfinished heart work might have been calling for attention. So I give thanks to the Creator of human emotions, tear glands, the 14,000-year evolution of the human-dog partnership, and BuDa, our barely-young-adult Boxer who died of a broken heart—a congenital heart disease that left him weak and breathless—on January 11, 2025. Sadly, sometimes evolution veers off on mortal tangents. It’s a known thing among Boxers. Thankfully, evolution’s main mission is to find paths that allow all that is to change: for lava to become land, for green leaves to create oxygen, for animals to survive the chaos of evolving and for human beings, the ability to see when it’s time to evolve. When the familiar beloved dies, a broken heart can open to something like light that changes us. Plants reflexively turn toward the light. For human beings, darkness reveals a grand paradox: darkness becomes light and light reveals the way of being made new. I give thanks to the Holy Mysterious Creator for the efficacy of this tiny ritual that has brought tears to my eyes, memories to my mind, life and depth to my heart and the conviction that I can become the one I have always yearned to be. David — David Dunn Creative Companion/Personal Publishing 720-314-5991 dmdunn1@gmail.com Skype: dmirror
