(Pinterest: Lovelife.typepad.com)

Dear Reader:

Haven’t we all heard the expression “Make your life worth living?”  When I came across this poster, however, I realized that this was the right message, because the only way to make our lives worth living is by loving... God, our fellowman, and ourselves.

We were all saddened yesterday by Rudy’s medical report that the cancer has spread. Rudy, of course, doesn’t know this and like Tommy told me last night…“Rudy is just being Rudy.”

I am sure Tommy didn’t realize it when he and Kaitlyn started seeing each other that he was getting a “double shot” of love… with Rudy as the sidekick. Everyone in the family was so happy to have Kaitlyn come into Tommy’s life and all our lives… but the biggest “shocker” was Tommy’s relationship with Rudy. He and Rudy became “best buds”….Tommy’s “little man.”

We didn’t have a pet when the children were growing up so this was Tommy’s first real experience with all the ups and downs of caring for a pet…but he embraced it whole-heartedly. Everyone in the family just shook their heads….Rudy showed Tommy another dimension of love.

Unconditional love…total acceptance of oneself by a little canine or feline friend is so addictive and so all encompassing. It comes closer to the type of love that Christ preached about than most human love…with all our “conditions” and “restrictions.”

Dogs and cats (pigs, too Honey) don’t judge…they just patiently wait until we get home to let us know how much we are missed. Isn’t that all we want from humans too…to know we are missed when we are away and that someone special only asks to spend time with us?

‘Loving time’ together…that is the greatest gift of all.!

And that is the gift that Kaitlyn and Tommy and all who love Rudy will give to our special little friend now…loving time….lots and lots of loving time.

Madeleine L’Engle said in her book: The Rock that is Higher:

” We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.”

I think every time we feel unconditional love…we are home…don’t you?

So until tomorrow…Let us pray daily that God shows us His face in the face of others…including our beloved Rudy.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Kept Eva Cate and Jakie for John to take Mandy out for her birthday last evening…I got some ‘good loving’ in ….lots of hugs and kisses.