If your pet could talk, what would be the first thing it says?
Imagine if animals could speak just like humans. What would they say first?
I imagined that if my pet suddenly sat in front of me one day and started speaking in human language, what would be the first thing it say to me?
Maybe it would say that it was hungry.
Or perhaps it would ask me to take it somewhere for a walk.
Maybe it would simply say, “Spend a little more time with me.”
Or perhaps it would say something I had never expected.
Maybe it would tell me how it feels.
Maybe it would tell me how scared it feels when I leave it alone and go somewhere.
Maybe it would tell me what it feels when I fail to understand what it is trying to say.
Or maybe it would tell me how happy it feels when I return home after being away.
I think many of us who have pets can understand this feeling. We have probably experienced that moment when we return home after being outside and find our pet happily following us around.
Without saying a single word, it tells us how happy it is to see us again.
But then I wondered—if it really had the chance to speak, would it only talk about what it needs?
Would it only say that it wants food, wants to go outside, or wants to play with us?
Or perhaps there are many things hidden inside it that we have never been able to understand.
Maybe it would tell us how it feels when we sit beside it.
Maybe when we gently touch or pet it, it does not see it as just a touch. Perhaps it feels that someone is there with it.
And maybe it would also tell us how long our small absence feels to it.
We humans sometimes think, “They are animals. What could they possibly understand?”
But if we pay a little more attention, perhaps they are already telling us many things.
They cannot speak, but they wait for us.
They cannot speak, but they recognize our voice.
They cannot speak, but they become happy when we come home—and perhaps a little sad when we leave.
And maybe the most beautiful thing is that they never ask us to prove our love for them.
They do not need an explanation.
They simply stay with us in their own way.
Sometimes I feel that if animals were given the power to speak like humans, we might have a lot to learn from them.
Because we humans have so many words to express ourselves, yet we seem to have less and less time to truly understand one another.
We listen to what someone says.
But do we always understand what they feel?
So, if my pet ever sat in front of me one day and actually started speaking, I don’t think the first thing I would ask would be what it wanted.
I think I would ask:
“What have you been trying to tell me all these years without words?”
♥