Unconditional pet lovin'

There's something about the unconditional love that your pet can give you. They know you hurt and will love you whether you are healthy or sick, happy or sad, give them attention or not. Winston, our corgi, was by my side within seconds of me dislocating my kneecap in January. That was the most excruciating physical pain I have yet to endure. And Dickens, one of our three cats, always seems to show up just when you need someone warm by your side.
              Before the tears began silently sliding down my cheeks tonight, Winston took his post laying in my doorway, while Dickens jumped into my bed and practically fell asleep on top of me. The cause of my hurt doesn't need to be discussed, but that love my family's pets* show us is what does need to be discussed.
              They sense our pain and know that we need them even if we don't ask for it. That is what I call unconditional love. And that is the kind of love I look for, yearn for, think about, write about and pursue. Everything I write here, whether you agree with it or not, is me. I'm not hiding in my writing. I'm exposing myself. So when I say that I look for that unconditional love that my pets give my family and I, that is what I mean.

*We have five pets: Winston (a corgi), Tigger (an orange tabby cat), Dickens (a speckled white and grey cat), Belle (a white, not so friendly cat) and Andy (a beta fish named after my favorite Yankee Andy Pettitte)