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In Transit...
Jun. 4th, 2004 04:42 pmI'm going home tomorrow to say goodbye to my dog. I really don't know how I'm going to react - it's been eighteen years since I last walked up to the door without her there to greet me. Back then there was no fence, no worn patches where se kept digging up the grass and no gnawed bones on the lawn. I think that will be the hardest part - the total absence of her presence.
I remember whe we got her - a surprise Christmas present that kept me awake all Christmas eve howling in loneliness at being separated from her litter-mates. My sister and I had no idea what the noise was and asked each other in the morning if we'd heard that "mad recorder player" or whatever it was last night. I remember how upset my Dad was when he saw her. He'd picked the litter and sent Mum off to select a nice strong male pup, then she came home with not only a bitch, but the runt of the litter as well! Couldn't leave the waggiest, lickiest, friendliest one of them all...
She was my companion through the rougher years of childhood and adolescence, always there when I needed a (furry) shoulder to cry on or just some companionship. We'd disappear for hours just wandering, finding our way along the coast and around the river. Part of my family and reassurance in an uncertain world. She didn't speak to me for 3 days when I came back from student exchange, unforgiving of my desertion in her doggie way. At least she was prepared when I left for good a year later.
More than just losing a well loved old friend, its letting go of my childhood - a world full of memories in which she featured so often. Realising now that that part of my life is gone forever and cannot be recaptured in familiar games and dogsplay any longer. So how do you say goodbye to that?
I'm going home tomorrow, to hold my mother and tell her it's ok. Home to watch my father pretend (poorly) that an animal doesn't matter (because that's what fathers do). Home to farewell a beloved old friend and in my own modest way repay the love that was given. Home, to lay to rest the last pieces of a childhood long abandoned but never forgotten.
I remember whe we got her - a surprise Christmas present that kept me awake all Christmas eve howling in loneliness at being separated from her litter-mates. My sister and I had no idea what the noise was and asked each other in the morning if we'd heard that "mad recorder player" or whatever it was last night. I remember how upset my Dad was when he saw her. He'd picked the litter and sent Mum off to select a nice strong male pup, then she came home with not only a bitch, but the runt of the litter as well! Couldn't leave the waggiest, lickiest, friendliest one of them all...
She was my companion through the rougher years of childhood and adolescence, always there when I needed a (furry) shoulder to cry on or just some companionship. We'd disappear for hours just wandering, finding our way along the coast and around the river. Part of my family and reassurance in an uncertain world. She didn't speak to me for 3 days when I came back from student exchange, unforgiving of my desertion in her doggie way. At least she was prepared when I left for good a year later.
More than just losing a well loved old friend, its letting go of my childhood - a world full of memories in which she featured so often. Realising now that that part of my life is gone forever and cannot be recaptured in familiar games and dogsplay any longer. So how do you say goodbye to that?
I'm going home tomorrow, to hold my mother and tell her it's ok. Home to watch my father pretend (poorly) that an animal doesn't matter (because that's what fathers do). Home to farewell a beloved old friend and in my own modest way repay the love that was given. Home, to lay to rest the last pieces of a childhood long abandoned but never forgotten.