Therapy Dog
It sounds strange to say dogs help therapy,
but there are dogs that do this. My youngest sister, who has a dog named Charlie,
went to
But I didn¡¯t understand why the dog is called a ¡®therapy dog¡¯ so I asked my sister. According to her, since in a hospital, especially in a children¡¯s hospital, bringing dogs in times of visitation is effective on kids, people bring dogs in even for adults. Rather than sitting alone in the hospital, playing with dogs and petting them, helps them to recover their health.
Receiving tax deduction in
It sounded so easy that I thought, ¡°They act snobby just for that,¡± and asked again what the dogs do when they visit the hospital. When I heard the answer I thought once again that is really nothing. I imagined that they might do some tricks to make kids laugh, or bring shoes by the order of kids, or change the TV channels, or open and close the door, or bring in nurses when necessary, etc. However, the answer was that most of the daily routine of the ¡®therapy dogs¡¯ is just to lie next to the patients. A simple act of being with them, without doing anything special in and of itself, is said to be therapy. A therapy dog that does not do anything but is simply with a patient¡¦sort of pathetic, and yet a special dog it is.
I have a young friend I witnessed to twenty
years ago. One day, I received a call from him who said that his mother (who
was not yet sixty) had suddenly passed away. Let alone the funeral preparation,
he wasn¡¯t prepared for such a situation at all, so he was running about in
confusion and asked me what to do. I myself had the funeral of my father when I
was a teenager. Thirty years ago, it was the first funeral for Koreans in the
Looking back, I know that nothing would bring any comfort to them and I just needed to be there with them. Even if I am put in the same situation again, there still isn¡¯t any special therapy or comfort I could give. I just need to lend them my shoulder when they cry, and just lend my ear rather than speaking.
I remember the movie ¡°Top Gun,¡± the only movie I watched with my wife when I was dating her. At the end, when giving Maverick the order to move, his mentor Viper encourages him by saying ¡°I will fly with you.¡± Indeed, the word, ¡°being with you¡± is the best therapy that implies complete trust of another person as well as a word of comfort and encouragement. When putting this word into practice, we can be a person of real therapy.
My dog Mola, though she didn¡¯t go through any training, must be born to be a therapy dog since she always sticks to me like a leech - never leaving my side. I fall into a delusional state when she is next to me, as if all the worries of the world disappear and I¡¯m just the most loved person in the world.
Ministry of ¡°being with¡± is similar to the therapy dog. Added to this, there is a verse said by someone I like and respect most in my favorite book: ¡°I will be with you until the end of ages.¡± What a great man! What I need the most is not something being done for me, but being with me which makes me feel the most secure.