how do you mend a broken heart?

you don't because hearts don't break. they get hurt, and lonely and afraid and hopeless and confused, but they don't break. and they will fix themselves with time.

tom's song

tom came to saints as an 18 year old dachshund. his wizened little face and tiny little body was tucked tight inside the young woman's arms. when those arms released him and cast him adrift he found a soft place in a quiet corner and went to sleep. other hands reached out to stoke him and brought him food and water to his bed. he ate and drank and occasionally lashed out at those other strange hands and then he went back to sleep. sometimes he shivered with cold and aloneness and then he was wrapped in fleece. but he pushed the fleece off him and wanted to suffer because his heart inside him hurt.

and for two full days and nights he suffered in silence. the woman discussed calling the family to ease his pain. and then in the 3 am darkness of night, the woman awoke to his cries. he was standing at the wire to his room. she scooped him up and took him to bed and laid with him wrapped in her arms. he licked her lips and then began to explore around the top of the bed. he sniffed the cats and looked over the edge and came back to lick the womans face. on his last lap around the bed, he leaned over too far and fell off the edge.

"oh, shit!, jesus tom, are you ok? you silly little beast you could have broken your head!"

then tom wandered under the bed for a look and found some cat kibble to eat. so the woman got him a can of fancy feast and he ate that as fast as he could. he followed the woman back down the hall and into the cat room he knew. and as she sat writing about his pain, he wandered and ate from every bowl. finally he was tired and ready for sleep so she wrapped him up in another warm fleece but then he decided he had slept long enough and got up to wander around some more. this was not the purposeless wandering of the old and the demented and lost, this was the wandering to see it all and try to make sense of a world gone astray. and finally he came back to the woman and asked to be held in her arms while he softly cried. when he was done, he fell asleep with his head tucked deep into her side.

how do you mend a sad and lonely heart? you don't, you wait and watch and hope that there is enough time left for the heart to heal itself.

welcome home tom.