My father taught me many things when I was a child. He taught me how to chew without making sounds with my mouth, and he use to walk me to school, and we didn’t have so much money and I cherished those moments like photographs.
One day, my father told me a story of a man who lived in the village with his wife, five children and his dog. They had a routine. Early in the morning, they all followed the man to the river, where they took a canoe to the other side of the village.
That was their daily routine and it was perfect, nothing changed it, he wouldn’t allow it.
But one day, on their back home, a heavy storm hit them right in the middle of their journey and the man couldn’t rescue his dog and so he lost him but he and his family were safe.
It broke him down, he grieved but soon he picked himself up and he and his family got adapted to their old routine but without a dog.
After some months, they came home to see a dog lying at the front of their door. They wondered why it had showed up and where it came from and It even appeared more bigger and quite beautiful than his old dog and so the man got very excited to know he was blessed with a replacement.
At first, the dog almost behaved like the old dog that died, or probably, as my father put it, the man saw the new dog behaving like his old dog. He immediately fell in love with it and shared every piece of his heart with his new found love and that suddenly ended his grief. He even spent much time with it, took him to places he never sent his old dog, he became much closer, his object of obsession and he didn’t care even if the new dog loved him that much, he was satisfied just knowing he had a new routine only that this time it was better.
So he thought to himself to get the dog a kennel because the other just lived at the door. So he used a part of his savings and contacted a blacksmith in the village to get him the most beautiful and strong kennel for his new dog. That day on his way home, he also gathered many bones for his new dog.
But when he got home, the dog was no where to be found. The dog had left.
These were the kind of stories my father use to tell me and they were different from the ones he spoke on the pulpit on Sundays.
Some don’t love at all after a loss.
For some love becomes an obsession when found again.
For some they are just indifferent, they expect nothing and give nothing much in return.
Sometimes it is hard to find replacements
The things we have lost
And the temptation of getting an exact new one
is that we unconsciously over burden it
and we begin to expect that it ends up giving
us the same amount of gratification and satisfaction
like the other one.
And that is not fair to our hearts and all the others involved
We will over work ourselves to think maybe if we try
just a little more we will get noticed, we will get liked, maybe we will get loved, maybe just a little more and our new object of obsession is likely to turn into an old one.
“Sometimes a man resembles his dog
and that’s okay
It shows how much he loved him
But when a dream is broken
You must give it another wings”
He ended.
I looked at my father and said “I wish I understood these things”
He smiled and said
“You will, when you lose a dog, and another again”
Dear readers,
You too will understand same.
Love,
Jo Nketiah
Nice one ma’am.
Giving other things the opportunity to sprout after loosing that which we desire to see grow is essential for personal healing and it also brings some sort of satisfaction.
thank you
Thank you rich