Bittersweet

So I just got the husband and the two youngest out the door, on their way to the Children's Museum this morning, and I'm starting to clean up the breakfast dishes, with the morning news on in the background. And I turn around to empty the high chair tray into the trash can, and the screen catches my eye, because they're doing a story about the New Orleans pets.

And once again my heart is split open like a melon and the tears are instant.

The shot is a close-up on a frantic, rough-looking, white-haired, bearded man sitting on the ground waiting for the pet rescuers to open a small doggie crate. The door opens, and 3 small dogs, like chihuahuas, bound out, and the man catches one of them, a runty little mousy brown thing, and he just LOSES. IT.

He's crying full-out like a child and cradling this runty little creature like it's his baby he thought was dead. He can barely choke out thank yous to the rescuers between his sobs.

And I lose. it. Standing there in the messy kitchen in my husband's sweatshirt at 9:30 on a Saturday morning, clutching the remnants of my baby's breakfast to my heart watching this man, who the newscasters inform me has lost everything, reunite with this most beloved little living being. The truth of that moment, the intense and beautiful truth of that man's sorrow and relief and joy, has stopped me in my tracks.

People. Sometimes I love you.