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You have heard, most surely you have, someone — perhaps many someones — over the years say, “I miss him every day.” Or “ We miss her so much.” Words to that effect.

Over the course of one’s journey, especially those whose passage has been long, (as we measure time in human terms) such an expressed emotion is perhaps one of the most powerful feelings we can have.

This also extends to, most surely it does, the love we have had for a pet who has crossed over the “Rainbow Bridge.” To love, then to lament the loss of any living thing, is a basic emotion for most. I believe that many animals feel much the same emotions as do we.

The price we pay for love is grief, it has been said. It can be a steep price, but who would not want love in their life?

There are those, however, who don’t seem to love a living creature — man or animal — nearly as much as they seem to love things: financial assets and “stuff.” Their self-esteem, self-validation, seems to derive from that which they possess.

There are those, unfortunately, who don’t appear to have what I call an inner core of tenderness, sensitivity, that causes most of us to love, to care, for and about others. Animals included.

Those of us who subscribe to the “no man is an island” view of this life are touched, moved, saddened by the sufferings of others. That there are those who are not so affected is difficult to understand.

Those of us who are so constituted, who empathize so strongly, have to be very careful not to go into dark places, not to let an awareness of suffering affect us too adversely.

Even the mean-spiritedness of some leaders, and especially of their “followers,” saddens me. Not because our views may be different, but that they embrace theirs in such judgmental and vitriolic ways, makes one sad. Must it be this way?

Enough of this. I have wandered away a bit from my musings about loss and sorrow.

Let us be grateful for that which love has brought to us during our pilgrimage, even that which has been lost, or exists no longer.

So, friends, this is the only “today” we have today.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.