They come to us as senseless, furry bundles of life, very old men, thrown to the side of the road, crippled, beaten. They expect attention and care. They create noise, puddles, and chewed-up slippers. They waste time and force us to change plans. They get in the way, lie down in the middle of the road, and burst in on us at the most inopportune moments. They get sick when we’re broke…

And they do all this sincerely and selflessly. They adore us, miss us, and rejoice when we return. They love us recklessly and are just as recklessly devoted to us. They change, and they change us. They give us the opportunity to feel like children at any age, shoving their toys into our hands only to immediately, growling menacingly, fight for them back. They take away loneliness, quietly approaching and offering the back of their neck—scratch it!—or simply looking at us silently. They restore the need to be needed again when our children grow up and disappear, creating their own lives. They do all this naturally and unnoticeably.

And then one day they leave. And it turns out that with them goes the entire world they quietly created while they were with us.

But love remains…