reflection
The man in the film tied his dog to a tree and drove off.
“Robert,” Jack called out from the row behind me, “is that how you abandoned your dog?”
I grimaced.
For more than a year, I’d been urging my family to give up one of the dogs. Coco would have to be the one because he required so much energy, energy that no one under this roof was willing or able to give.
For the better part of a year, I’d appointed myself the one who’d try to make a difference in Coco’s life, taking him out and keeping him company. Even when I was juggling school, work, and the semblance of a love life, I’d always made time for him.
I didn’t want to, I didn’t feel I could, but I didn’t feel I had a choice: I couldn’t bear the thought of him ignored or locked up. I’d encountered resistance to the idea of finding him a better home, and as Stef pointed out, it was a selfish love to hold onto something or someone who would be better off in better hands.
One night, mom told me she met someone who was willing to take him. Mom wanted me to be the one to give him up because she couldn’t give him up, even if it was in his best interest.
The man came suddenly, and with little notice, he was already taking the little guy that I didn’t want to be attached to, but already was. I thought I felt another memory begin to come to me, but it faded when I got the phone call.
It felt like I had to dip in to a cold part of myself to be able to give up a friend and companion that I had cared deeply about, despite myself.
That night, I lost more than one friend and companion.
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My world is coming apart three months early, and while this doesn’t make for great travel reading, I realize that I need to write this so that I can remember this grief when I am traveling months from now.
I need to remember so that I can contrast it with the joy I hope to have once more of seeing new places, and meeting new people. On that day, I will return to being a lone and alone on my journey.
For now, however, grief overcomes me. And I truly wish someone out there would find me.
Tags: May 2009
