THE other day I was talking to someone who’d been in the real estate business, and he told me he’d left the profession because of treachery, “Bob,” he told me, “Deals are made behind your back, by clients who I’ve introduced to each other, because they don’t want me to have my rightful commission!”
That night as I lay down to sleep, I thought of the word treachery. It was not just businessmen! I remembered an editor of a religious magazine who after a board meeting in which I pointed out his mishandling of his office staff, rang up the printing press, where the magazine was about to go for printing and told the printer to remove my article, “We passed it in the board meeting!” He lied glibly. Oh yes, I understood what it was to be stabbed in the back!
I thought of loving husbands and wives who after giving their all to their spouses find they have married traitors. Who comes home one day to find divorce papers staring them in the face and their peace shattered forever! Boys and girls deeply in love who have been ditched, and fathers who’ve found sons cheating them in the family business.
I have always been a dog lover, but have never been overly obsessed with my canine friends. They exist along with my two legged human ones and share my affections equally. But I have seen many people who love nothing and nobody but their dogs and sometimes cats. I still remember travelling by Greyhound in the US and having an old lady next to me. “Tell me about your family,” I said.
“I’ll tell you about Toby,” she said and proceeded throughout the journey talking about her pet cat. I found she was working out a way to leave her house and money to Toby! I also found out that Toby had come into her life and taken centre stage after her husband and children had walked out on her. Her cat was her life, because she felt for sure that four-legged canine would never be a traitor to her. I listened to her and then asked somewhat cruelly what would happen if Toby died. “I’d die too,” she said simply.
“Why don’t you give your affection to someone who will never walk out on you nor ever die?” I asked, looking heavenward “who will give you loyalty to the grave and beyond?” She looked at me in that Greyhound bus, with tears in her eyes but was reluctant to go farther. Her scars were too deep for such quick turnarounds. That night, at the home I was staying in, I couldn’t get sleep, and tossed and turned awhile. Suddenly I smiled, stretched out my hand, and felt it being grasped firmly by someone who would never leave me nor forsake me..!
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
