Dear Mischa... (original) (raw)

You know that I love you. And I do.

Today is Valentine's Day. I don't expect you to understand that, since you'd need to know about things like calendars and cynically manipulative card-manufacturing companies, but let's say that it's a day when humans celebrate love. Actually what most of them are celebrating is sexual pair-bonding love, but I'm alone today so I'm going to celebrate human-dog love because I'm missing you most of all.

When you first came to akeela and me, I was obsessed with you—at least, after that awful first week while you went through the shock of being removed from your previous pack. A dog! a dog of our very own! a beautiful and sweet-natured dog! a dog on our sofa! a dog in our home! our dog! And I thought that was love.

I've never been in love before. I've skirted love's periphery with other humans, most notably akeela of course, but really the closest I've come has been a sort of strong sexual fondness and friendship and trusting mutual solidarity. I'll probably never understand why love has eluded me, but I have a few guesses—pubescent humans can be every bit as nasty as malamute pack politics, and the effects on socialisation can be just as profound.

So anyway. After a week I thought I loved you for your beautiful form and warm brown eyes. But after a month I realised that the beauty I loved was only pelt-deep, and I realised that you were more lovable for your gentleness and vitality. After three months, when you first wagged your tail for me, I was sure I loved you for your sweet and sociable nature. After a year, I loved you for everything.

And still my love for you changes. Every day I see you, every time you wag your tail, or grin or 'talk' at me, or make that irresistible growly-rumbly noise before a walk; every move you make, the form of your body, your pleasure in your food, the sleek precision of your gait, the rough warmth of your pelt—everything about you is cause for celebration, for admiration, for delight. I love you, I really really do; and love changes, not each month or year, but each time I hug you or feed you, or call you "Mooshky" or sing those silly little songs for you as I mix your supper, or dry you after a muddy walk, or step over you because you've fallen asleep in the doorway again, or pet you with Aki when you curl up between us while we're watching House, or hold yowly conversations with you or just glance aside at your happy tongue-lolling expression as we run together.

I thought that love would be a static thing, established and then left unchanged. I never knew, until I knew you, that love is ever-changing, ever fresh and ever new, renewing itself from moment to moment, always finding some new way to love something new about the one you love.

Perhaps, learning the lesson of love, I'll learn to share it with a sexual relationship too. Or perhaps not; either way, I'll accept what comes. All that really matters is love; and, my very dear dog, my first true love is for you.

I can't be with you today, but I send you all my love and I name you my Valentine.

Love,
Me.