Life’s little messages startle me sometimes. It happened today on the tails of my introspective commentary and ultimate acceptance of being anything but ordinary. Just yesterday I explored my quest for normalcy to better understand the uniqueness that is me. So you can imagine my surprise when today of all days I ran into my brother from another mother at the dog park.
His name is Benny, and looking at him is like looking in the mirror. We have the same coloring, the same facial features, the same wire-hair fur, and even the same pointy ears and fluffy tail combination I thought I had copyrighted. Benny’s mom mistook me for him, and my mom (gasp) mistook him for me.
As you can imagine, we were quite the topic of conversation amongst the people bystanders. It turns out Benny was a rescue dog too, from a shelter not that far from mine. I wondered what his life was like before his forever mom found him. Did he go through the same kinds of challenges I did? Moreover, could it be? Could we be brothers? I somehow had the mind to go over all of these questions in my head while he and I wrestled for the attention of the same lass (a white terrier mix) named Addison. (I knew her first, but I digress).
I suppose anything is possible, though I overheard later that Benny is two years younger than me. His mom informed my mom that she had Benny DNA-tested and the results came back that he is a mix of Pomeranian and Silky Terrier. She didn’t buy it and neither do I, but it was an interesting theory to add to the long list of hypotheses that exist about just what makes me me.
Irony is not lost on me. I’m not sure why I got this particular reminder today, less than 24 hours after I proclaimed to the blogosphere my acceptance of being one-of-a-kind. And I was far too exhausted from playing to think about it too hard. So instead of thinking myself in circles trying to find the meaning of the message, I will take a different page from my book of tricks. I made a new friend today. His name is Benny. Simple is as simple does. Sometimes the big picture is made up of fleeting moments like these that simply require our respect.
