What We Mean When We Say Forever

My beloved will tell you she committed to me forever on the day we declared our love (or perhaps more accurately, lust) for one another on a cool fall day at the end of September. And she did. And she has never wavered. She jumped in with both feet. Forever.

I dithered. I should not admit it. I should write myself better in the story. I should say, I, too, knew this was it, and I was committed to forever. Starting on that day in September. Except it would be a lie. I was committed to getting her into bed. To seeing what a relationship would be like with her. To trying things out. The fact of the matter is forever seemed to me like a very long time. It took me a long time to make that commitment. I did, I have, but it took time.

I’ve always been interested in the back doors, the ways out, the modes of shirking one’s responsibilities but still being within the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. Forever is a very long time. I am more of a renewable contracts kind of gal in my heart. Let’s start with a year, if things go well, we can make it two then five and extend five years at a time after that. This proposition seems to me like a much more rational way of organizing relationships.

In principle, I still am that let’s be cautious forever is a long time kind of woman, but, in practice, I have a different relationship to forever because of our critters. When I first adopted HD and GertrudeSteinGertrudeStein, a coworker cautioned me about adopting two cats. It is a long commitment, she said. Think about it, be sure you can do it. I thought, flippantly, well, if I cannot, I will find another home for them. This was before I knew about love and dependency. Once I had them, I loved them and they depended on me. They were in my life for sixteen and twenty-one years respectively.

Forever is a very long time, but not as long as I would like it to be with my cats and dogs. So when we adopt a new critter, when we become their forever home, it really is forever. For the life of the animal. No questions. No give backs. Forever. Good times and bad. Thick and thin.

Has someone loved you though a hard time in life? Through the months you did not want to get out of bed? Through the grief of losing a parent? A friend? A sibling? Has someone lifted you up when you could not pull up yourself? Has someone told you, I will be here for you forever?

This is what the critters we adopt expect from us. They cannot ask in language we immediately understand, but they convey their need for stability, for love, for affection.

Tibe’s hearing is tomorrow. In the morning on the east coast. My beloved is in town and prepared to speak on our behalf. I am not sure that I believe in prayer (as you now know, I was slow to come to forever), but if you do and you would, pray for Tibe and all of us in our family.

I have been flummoxed by the number of people who think given our challenges with Tibe that we might just give him back. Some people think we could give him back to the rescue or an animal shelter. That we could and should turn our backs on him in favor of neighborly peace or to avoid the investment of training or to  eschew the uncertainty of our future. I do not think these people understand commitment. I do not think that these people understand forever. I do not think these people understand love.

I know love. She will walk into the hearing tomorrow morning at 9:30 am, devoted to me as she has been every day for nearly twenty years. I know love. Love in snoring in the kitchen and will insist on an extra long walk tonight in the twelve degree weather; love will romp through the fresh snow, her paws like snowshoes. I know love. She squeaks in the morning for wet food and curls up on my shoulder midday. I know love. He will sleep beside me tonight, his strong, muscular body pressing against me, warm, solid.

This life, this family, these creatures, a motley crew. This is what we mean when we say forever.

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