We've lost our beloved Toby:
Life is sad.
My wife and I feel like we've lost our best friend. His personality dominated this place. We still feel him, hear him, see him, smell him. But..not enough. (And too much.)
I guess I should declare for the sake of pet skeptics that our grief is not due to the error of anthropomorphism. (Well, at least not entirely.) Rather, it flows from the loss of love that is distinctive precisely because it lacks the standard character of love between humans. The thought is related to this well-known passage from Whitman's "Song of Myself":
I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied--not one is demented with the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago;
Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.
Now, Whitman here gives too much credit to animals, and shows too little sympathy for the plight of poor human beings. (We--humans and nonhumans alike--are all bits of fate.) But he does get at the idea that animals have in them a uniquely helpless honesty. Even the least trusting among us can trust an animal. There are no ulterior motives or agendas, in the main because animals aren't capable of formulating ulterior motives or agendas. Whatever affection animals show us follows perfectly from their character just because rational calculation cannot intercede.
And Toby was a virtuoso of affection. The picture above is exemplary of how Toby would spend his day when his humans were around. Hugs and kisses and headbutts and chatting and cooing. He seduced us every time, and we fell in love with him anew, over and over.
We will miss falling in love like that.
_______________________

TOBY DRAKE
1994(?)-2008
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