Consideration For The 4th Of July: Windows Of The Soul

Author: Justin Cain

Just like any other day, after getting up, I reached for my phone and scrolled through the notices on Facebook. Most of it was the same old stuff until I saw a post from an old friend. We haven’t seen or talked to each other for years.

His post said he had lost someone who had been with him for years, that she had gone peacefully in her sleep. We hadn’t spoken in decades, and I had no idea what his family situation looked like these days. I really didn’t know what to say, so like most people, I said I was sorry for his loss.

Then I saw it while scanning all the other condolences. A comment with a small graphic - a paw touching a human hand in the form of a prayer. Following that, another friend of his had shared a passage about dogs becoming angels. Something shifted in my chest. Not from grief, but from recognition. I’d misunderstood. This was about his dog and not a family member.

The embarrassment quickly changed to something harder to pinpoint. Here was a man mourning openly and publicly for an animal. Friends gathered around him with the same words they’d offer for any family member, friend, or colleague. In his mind, like so many other people out there, that’s what the dog had been.

I realized we do this strange dance with categories and labels. An animal becomes a pet. A pet becomes family. We forget the simple truth underneath - we are all animals. Every one of us.

Cows have nervous systems. Pigs dream. Chickens recognize faces. Birds solve problems. We know this intellectually. We see it when we look, really look, into their eyes. The same awareness that looks back at us from our pets looks out from every living creature.

I’ve watched the documentaries. I’ve seen the lines of cattle, the transport trucks packed with pigs. I’ve heard the sounds they make when they understand what’s coming. Their eyes go wide. They cry out to each other, tears running down their faces. They feel terror just as we would.

The disconnect is deliberate. Packages in grocery stores don’t show eyes. They don’t play the sounds. They present flesh without the soul, product without history. We’ve built a system that depends on our not seeing the truth.

But we do see. We see it in our dogs, our cats, and the birds we cage. We see souls there. We love our birds, gerbils, and fish. We just choose not to extend that vision to the food on our table.

My friend’s grief over his dog was real, valid, and worthy of community support. No one questioned it. No one minimized it. No one heckled him, saying it was only a dog. They understood that love doesn’t require human form.

That same understanding awaits extension to all creatures. Every animal in every farm, every slaughterhouse, every transport truck - they’re individuals like us. They have preferences. They form friendships. They experience joy and fear. They possess what we recognize instantly in our companion animals - consciousness, personality, soul.

The choice sits before us daily. We can see the soul or just the flesh. We can recognize kinship or maintain distance. We can extend our circle of compassion or keep it small and comfortable.

Change doesn’t require aggression or judgment. It asks only that we see clearly and honestly. That we apply the same recognition we give our pets to all animals. That we remember we’re all part of the same vulnerable, feeling, conscious family of beings.

Look into any animal’s eyes. See what looks back. Make your choices from that place of recognition.