“Compassion is not a matter of pity or the strong helping the weak; it’s a relationship between equals, one of mutual support….we come to realize that other people’s welfare is just as important as our own.
In helping them, we help ourselves. In helping ourselves, we help the world.”
~ Pema Chodron
When I awoke this morning something felt off. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I surfed Facebook over coffee and saw a few exchanges that were tense for no reason I could tell. Even one of my BFFs was brittle over a simple photographic question. It was all just …off, for lack of a better word. I put it down to the oppressive heat. Then, I noticed it was Stanya Franklin Terrell’s birthday, and it dawned on me: Mamaw died five years ago today. Not being one to remember dates very well, anniversaries like this often go unnoticed by me unless something very obvious rattles my memory, like Stanya’s birthday. Even still, once I realized the significance of the date, it didn’t break my uneasy feeling. At precisely 3:33 (for you numerologists out there) I received a picture from mom. I wept. Sometime after a late breakfast, while he was out chasing some varmint or other, little Crackerjack was hit and killed by a car. Mom and dad’s neighbor found him beside the road. The perpetrator never bothered to stop. The photos above were taken Thursday when they were here visiting. Wally will miss his best friend. Dad already misses his best friend. I certainly share his grief, but dad’s prayer for CJ reveals such a deep level of compassion that it makes me exceedingly proud of him. What a great man my dad is. I’m eternally grateful for the friendship Crackerjack showed him, and the love he gave us all (dog is God spelled backwards, after all). Go with God, little feller.
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