Pets teach you the hardest lesson early: love everything like it has a timer, because it does.

An animal runs through a whole life beside you at speed, which makes the shape of it visible in a way it usually is not. That is where many people first meet the fact that affection and loss are attached to each other. It is a hard thing to learn young, and it is also the most honest preparation there is.

Let that knowledge make you warmer rather than more guarded. Give the extra time to whoever is in front of you, animal or person, without holding some back for later. Later is the part that was never guaranteed.