A pet's love

I recently bought a new television for the living room.
Once I did, a whole cascade of events took place.
I rearranged the living room furniture so that I could sit closer to the new bigger screen and take advantage of the view.
The rearrangement now left me room to move John's desk from its old place in what used to be his office [now a room I made for meditation and reading] into a new place of prominence in the living room.
Now with the new bigger TV I wanted to watch my stored videos of our wedding and family vacations.
The old DVD player no longer worked so I trotted off to Best Buy and bought a new one.
That brought me to last weekend.
New DVD hooked up, I popped in one of the DVD's I had had made of films from a vacation from many many years ago.
It started off with John at the bow of a small ship [we were in New England somewhere - I no longer remember]. He was offering food to the seagulls following the ship and talking to me who was filming.
That was the thing. He was talking. You could hear his voice loud and clear.
Suddenly, Riley, one of our cats who loved John so much, stopped what he was doing and jumped up on the TV stand and just stood and stared at John on the screen. He stayed there for several minutes until the view changed and John was no longer visible.
I watched in amazement and had to take his picture to memorialize it.
This little cat who had not seen or heard John in almost 9 years remembered.
He remembered the man he loved to snuggle with.
Who fed and cared for him.
Who loved him.
He remembered and he still loved him.
I have never believed in the "it's just an animal" viewpoint but I gained an even bigger respect for the souls of animals that day.
You can't tell me Riley wasn't remembering his Daddy.
The saving grace is that our animal buddies are very good in living in the Now. So when John was off the screen, Riley was happy to go back to what he had been doing.
I, on the other hand, sat and cried.
Namaste.