I wrote and shared the the post below last year, just about this time.  Enjoy the flashback, The Love,  and happy weekend!

————————————————————————————————————-

I never thought I’d love another dog as much as I loved Max.  I thought, he’s ‘the one‘.  The one that will always own my heart.  Then came Melvin. Never have I  been through so much with a dog. His joyful existence and soulful ways, they stole me.

He’s the one.  I mean I can’t imagine I could love another dog the way I love him.  He has taught me a love I didn’t know before.

Then I look at Jake.

I think all along I’ve had this whole thing wrong. The one may not be the dog.

The one, may be the Love.

It’s where you put your heart’s load. It’s the bond that you can’t imagine being without.  And that love, is supposed to move and grow and leap.  It doesn’t take away from those that came before, in fact I think it represents them, it carries them on.

Six years ago, although I didn’t realize it, it likely went a little like this in my heart: Melvin, this love I’m giving you is Max love, it’s crazy powerful and happiness inducing and well I can’t NOT give it to you because well the universe took Max but gave me you and this love, this love needs to go on and you deserve this love, you have left your own mark on this love. This love, it’s yours now. It always was, it always will be.

And I probably did the same thing unknowingly last year, with Jake.

You have a dog and you love them and you give them your love and they are meant to feel it, to fuel it, to nurture it, to own it and then, in a way, to give it back to you as they go. I can say with absolute certainty that in my last moments with Max, he communicated two things to me with a single glance.  I know you love me and I need you to love this way again.

That one love, is infinite.

I’m not sure what inspired me to write this post.  I think a little of it is that Melvin is turning nine this weekend and I have started accepting that the lighter color fur on his face, is in fact gray.  I think it’s also because, when I look and Melvin and then to Jake, my heart is full.  And when I think of Max, the love is there still.  How lucky are all of us that THE LOVE goes on!