Exploring the soul.
I was thinking a lot about Gigi, our pet boston terrier, yesterday. She was with us ever since late 2003, but eventually had to end up staying at my aunt’s house in Makati after circumstances (change of house, lack of household help, limited pet freedoms in the condominium) changed. She has been there for almost half a decade, and I see her aging little by little each time I visit, and I visit seldom.
I thought to myself: what do I do when she passes away? Do I mourn over and pray for her as I would any loved one? Or is Saint Thomas Aquinas right, and am I merely a fool to even be thinking about all of this for a soulless creature?
I believe that the best writings with which to explore the idea are Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit and Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, both deceptively rich and profound stories. Perhaps being regarded with love and meaning is the process by which anything is endowed with a soul—and I don’t work on the standard definition of souls being our ghosts when we pass away; I believe that we do not possess souls, and that we instead are souls.
Maybe even a rock can be more than just a rock. It can be the best rock in the world to someone, or a condemned, hated rock. It can be a meaningful, beautiful rock, possibly any among a rockstar, a philosopher’s inspirational sitting place, the beloved paperweight of a Palanca Award-winning author-in-the-making, or simply an unnoticed rock by the canals of Metro Manila. A rock could potentially be anything. Pets, too. People, most especially.
Perhaps this is why we are—for we have been loved first.
Notes
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