You can’t rewind a pet’s life

Jennifer Vanderau
Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter

(8/2019) I am moderately worried about my addiction to rewinding live television. I use it somewhat religiously.

It’s amazing to me when I’m watching my favorite show and can’t exactly make out what one of the characters said, I simply push the rewind button and find out. Or when there’s a particularly touching moment or a great line I want to remember to talk to friends about, boom. Rewind button.

Sharon Carter’s memorial to her Aunt Peggy in Captain America: Civil War gets backed up pretty much every time it’s on my television. Ugh. What a great speech.

With all that in mind, I was on my way to work a while ago and in one of the yards I passed by I noticed a little girl walking up to a swing set being followed by a cute looking dog. Obviously the pup belonged to the family and it appeared to me that he was watching over the little girl as she played, doing his job protecting her.

It was as close to a Normal Rockwell painting come to life as I’ve ever seen.

As I drove by, I thought to myself, oh let me rewind to watch that again.

No joke. That thought actually went through my head.

I’m not terribly proud of this moment. I’m sure my mother is not all that fond to read that, either.

In the car, now well-beyond the aforementioned adorable scene, I had to blink a few times to allow the whole thing to really take hold in my brain. Once I truly realized what I had just done, I had a pretty monumental epiphany.

Despite the fact that all this really goes without saying, I had to remind myself that for as much as I enjoy the rewind button on my television, life does NOT have that particular innovation.

Being a student of Eastern Philosophy and acupuncture for almost ten years now, I’ve heard a lot of talk about the importance of living in the moment and being present.

One of my very favorite quotes comes from Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda. "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present."

What really matters is the here and now. We can’t rewind it, we can’t predict it, so the only other option is to fully experience it.

Give your focus, your attention, your concentration to the present. You might be surprised at what you encounter.

I am a ghost tour guide in Gettysburg and last month, I took a group of middle school kids from Seattle, WA, out to try to scare them. It worked. They were awesome and a ton of fun and when they left, they were seriously worried about what might be waiting for them in their hotel room from the other side of the veil.

It was so much fun.

There was a moment, though, during the tales when a lightning bug buzzed into the center of the half-circle the kids had formed around me. Being from the west coast, they had never seen a lightning bug before.

Normally, on ghost tours I’m focused on the stories and what time it is and where I am because I know I have to get the group back on time to the buses. It really is a great part time job, but you do have to keep to a schedule.

But seeing the absolute awe on those kids’ faces gave me pause. For a minute, I let them watch the twinkling insect as it flickered around them. One of them tried to catch the bug and I said, "Go ahead, they don’t bite."

It was a moment of purity, of true authenticity to witness young kids experience something like that for the first time. And I deliberately let it happen. I didn’t worry about the time or getting to my next story stop.

I’m glad I did because it was really neat to observe and be a part of that guilelessness.

The opportunity arose again a few weeks ago when I took two utterly adorable kittens from CVAS to a local daycare. I talked to the children about the shelter and what we do. We told stories and I got to hear all about the kids and their animals and how one little girl believes that she is a rainbow superhero.

It really is a glorious world of random when you’re around kids five and younger.

When it was time for them to say hello to my kittens, I sat on a chair and they came up one by one. For that instant, I stopped looking at the clock and worrying about where I needed to be. Instead, I watched as each one of them stood beside me and very gently petted the kitten on my lap.

The little black-and-white feline actually started purring midway through the introductions. None of my cats at home would ever be that chill. This little guy was an amazing cat (needless to say he got adopted really quickly).

When one of the little girls leaned down and gave the kitten the softest of kisses on his head, I think my heart may have actually contracted in my chest.

It was a connection to child-like wonder and excitement and forgetting about my to-do list allowed me to truly enjoy it.

Following that visit, I had to stop by an office that helps the shelter and instead of bringing the kittens back to the shelter first, I took them along with me. Oh my word, did the employees love that. I swear I saw more people that worked there in just one hour than I have for an entire year.

I turned my brain away from everything waiting for me on my desk and just watched them all interact with those little squirts.

You know what I noticed? Their expressions mirrored the ones of the daycare kids — for a moment those adults became children again. Animals really do bring out the best in all of us and when you see that unadulterated joy, you can’t help but catch the feeling.

Imagine if I hadn’t been focused on all those seemingly small moments. What if I’d been paying more attention to my watch than what was happening around me? How sad to have missed out on sharing that kind of delight.

I can’t rewind life like I can the Captain America movies. If I miss something in the real world, then I miss it.

Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe that keeps us grounded, in the here-and-now, so that the best parts of life don’t pass us by.

How often are you distracted by where you have to be and what you have to do instead of engrossed in the moment? What could you be missing?

If you keep your eyes open and mind turned off to the endless chatter of "should haves" and "have to do’s," you might be really charmed and grateful for what you get to see.

I love my rewind button for television, but when it comes to life, there’s no going back, so the here-and-now is where I want to stay.

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Jennifer Vanderau is the Director of Communications for the Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter in Chambersburg, Pa., and can be reached at cvasoc@innernet.net. The shelter accepts both monetary and pet supply donations. For more information, call the shelter at (717) 263-5791 or visit the website www.cvas-pets.org.