Bravery with love

The whole idea behind being brave in a situation requires a risk to be taken.  With absolutely no risk, there is no bravery which is why we consider certain people (military, firefighters, police officers) as being brave.  I believe there is another level of bravery that is often ignored and it is something that most of us possess.  I recently lost a dear pet of mine who has been with me for about 11 years.  Of course there are some people that won't understand this as they aren't really animal lovers.  If you are one of these, I would suggest you stop reading now because the rest of this will seem ridiculous.  Now if you're still reading, I have to say that this was a difficult loss for me.  I was there when they put her to sleep and I won't lie, for the next couple of days, I cried.  As I returned to my every day routine of life, I noticed places where she'd sleep, boxes she had torn up, missed sounds she would make and the activities she would participate in.  With each of these, I felt the hurt again and cried.  After a couple of days I began to cry less and my heart began to progress through the grieving that comes with the death of someone (yes, I said someone) you care about.  In a discussion with my mother about this I began to realize something that I hadn't thought about before.  It is a common understanding that there are opposites in all things.  Black and white, fast and slow, etc.  Some would say love and hate are opposites.  I began to think that the opposite of love is heartache, not hate.  It's understood that the extent that you allow yourself to feel one is the extent you will feel the other.  If you never love anyone, you won't get hurt.  If you love someone a lot, you open yourself up to hurt a lot.  Parents experience this often with their children.  With this understanding I realized that those of us who take that risk to open up our hearts to love someone else are participating in a brave act for truly, if we allow ourselves to love with great emotion, we open ourselves up to experiencing great hurt.  I experienced this with my beloved Shirley.  She had been with me for so long and I had come to love her with quite a bit of love.  When she died, I was faced with a great hurt.  While this was not a pleasant experience (to say the least) I began to think, "Isn't it wonderful that I had the capacity to love someone so much that I can hurt this bad?"  I would hope that I can continue to be brave enough to open my heart up to love enough even with the risk of hurting so much.  For if we think about the best example, who of course is Christ, He suffered the ultimate hurt because He is holds the ultimate love.  I will miss you Shirley.  Thank you for the experience of both love and hurt.