I wish I loved you better

This is my first print club letter. I paired it with. the artwork mini print of "Best Friend" which I sent a few months ago.

I am making my letters public as blog posts now, because instead of simply sharing my work, I want to share who I am, why I am, and why I do what I do.

I want to connect.

In all earnestness, here goes nothing.

I don’t think there is a child alive who hasn’t loved an animal. My first puppy love was my dog, Jimmy,

He was my best friend. I loved him the way I was taught to love, which wasn’t always with kindness, and that hurts to admit. But I have to remember I was a child, and we both deserved so much more than what we were given.

I think about him still, even now at 38 years of age, and will continue to till the day I last close my eyes.

After four years together, my parents gave him away. I came home one day to find the house empty. I was told he left too much hair on the furniture.

Decades later, my mother asked me to help her move house. While packing, I found an old postage mailer. Inside was a letter and a CD from the family who adopted Jimmy. My hands shook reading it. This had been kept from me for so many years.

The letter described his life with them. The way he slept at the foot of their bed. The way he ran through the backyard with abandon. The way he curled up in their laps as if he was still a puppy. Then I read the final line. He died peacefully, deeply loved by people kinder than us. I still havent looked at the CD. I tell myself its because I dont have a CD-ROM, but I think its because it will just hurt too much. I’m still a bit of a coward in that way I suppose. The selfishness of the pain of love.

Now when I look back, I feel grateful he was set free from our home. In the end, he got the love he deserved, and somehow that gave me hope that maybe I will too.

We only give the love we know how to receive. Every day we learn how to love a little better. I was a child, and I hadn’t been loved quite right yet. I don’t hold that against myself anymore.

I always return to love.

I’m always trying to make something worth loving. Or maybe I create because I want to be worth loving?

The cycle continues.