creature comforts

In good times or bad, animals reach us in ways that human words cannot. Take the spring several years ago when my world turned upside down. I lived in a swirl of confusion. That year I made several trips along a road where spring waters flooded either side of the road. My thoughts swirled faster than the water until I glimpsed a half-immerse log covered with turtles lined up to warm themselves in the sun. I smiled at my solitary discovery and for a moment realized that however chaotic things felt, they would sort themselves out. During the next few weeks I passed that way. I found it a spot of joy to catch a glimpse of turtles warming up after their winter’s sleep in the mud.
On another spring day a newly hatched duck came to our house. My daughter held the bustling bit of fluff in her hands. It checked her out then settled down to sleep in the cup of her hand. She made a nest for it in a pile of soft cloths. The duckling woke up, looking for physical warmth and security. My daughter cuddled it until it relaxed into sleep. When she tried again to put it down, the duckling woke up. Only after she fixed up a heat lamp over its nest of rags did the duckling settled down to sleep itself – a wispy bit of fluff commanding her concern and time.
Sometimes it is the animal communicating its concern. I was waiting at a friend’s house while she answered the phone. I heard her dog’s toenails click across her kitchen floor to me from the back room where he had been banished to keep him from bothering me. He slipped out and came right to me. He sat down quietly and looked up at me, not barking or jumping up to greet me. He just sat there with his silly doggy grin. I chuckled to myself and grinned back. When we heard his mistress hang up the phone, the dog looked at me as if to say, “don’t tell her I was here,” and silently slipped away. I never told.
Some of God’s creatures are a bit more vocal in their approval. My daughter opened the front and back doors to enjoy the breeze while she played the piano. At the height of her concert a Chihuahua pranced in the front door, barked and panted merrily. When she turned to look at him, he jauntily headed toward the back door. She laughed, shook her head in disbelief and began playing the Spinning Wheel.
As she rocked her way through the song a second time the Chihuahua came in the front door again. He barked approvingly wagged his tail to the beat of the song and trotted out the back door. She giggled and kept on playing, keeping one eye open for the tiny canine creature.
It came back, looked up at her, its face filled with the sheer joy of living and disappeared out the door never to be seen again. To this day we do not know where that Chihuahua came from, where he went to or why he circled through our house three time. We only know that he, like other animals, touched our lives and went on his way.


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