Month: July 2023

Fur Love

“No matter how close we are to another person, few human relationships are as free from strife, disagreement, and frustration as is the relationship you have with a good dog. Few human beings give of themselves to another as a dog gives of itself. I also suspect that we cherish dogs because their unblemished souls make us wish – consciously or unconsciously – that we were as innocent as they are, and make us yearn for a place where innocence is universal and where the meanness, the betrayals, and the cruelties of this world are unknown.” ~ Dean Koontz, A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog

I always miss my dogs, but late last year, I thought of them one day and I found myself uncontrollably sobbing, feeling the weight of the loss of them. It has been over ten years, but on that day, I missed them as though I had just lost them.

I frantically looked for pictures of them, wanting to see their picture as I knew it was the closest I could ever be with them again. Because they lived pre-cell phone camera days, all my pictures of them are from “real” cameras. I found a scanned picture of them on my computer and immediately ordered a framed picture of them.

Now their picture sits on top of my desk. I look at it every day and remember how beautiful life was when they were with me. I miss: petting their soft fur, how they would rub their wet noses on my skin, taking long walks with them, how they would both sleep on the bed with me at night with one part of their body always touching mine, how they always knew whenever I needed them. It was pure love. God, I miss them.

Dark Cloud

“Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time.” ~ Ransom Riggs, Hollow

So many good things have been happening in my life. I am overwhelmed with all the blessings I have received lately. I am beyond grateful to God.

But I am not able to enjoy any of it because a dark cloud hangs over me constantly. The dark cloud follows me wherever I go, even in my sleep.

A few weeks ago, I woke up to the white light of the television set coming from the living room. My telly had somehow turned on by itself in the middle of the night. I am not sure how as the remote was nowhere near my bed. I was frightened, but I got up to turn it off. I checked the door to make sure no one had broken in, but the door was still securely locked. I went to the living room and turned off the television.

I went back to bed and started thinking about my daughter – about how she never sleeps at home anymore, how she never tells me where she goes, who she sees, and what she does. On the off chance that she does tell me something, oftentimes she is not being truthful.

I try every day, to reach her, to connect with her somehow. But she does not let me in. She is secretive and mysterious. I pray to God all the time to guide her and to guide me. We had a good run so far this year, but the tides turned again the last month, and when she is lost, I feel even more lost.

I would give up all the other good things happening in my life if only I could connect with her.

As I laid in bed thinking of her and feeling frustrated, I suddenly lost my breath and I felt myself gasping for air. I felt my body temperature rise and I suddenly became paralyzed. My heart and mind were racing, but my body was motionless and I could not breathe. I suddenly feared that I was going to die right then and there and I worried for the poor doormen who would have to break into my apartment to remove my smelly rotting corpse weeks after I had passed.

I am not sure how long I had been gasping for air, but it felt like an eternity. I felt myself losing consciousness as the lack of oxygen had started to make me dizzy and I felt even more panicked. But then I suddenly was flooded with a sense of relief at the thought of oncoming death, and as I had started to say my final prayers to God, I finally found my breath again, and I gulped up some air and I started to cough.

A part of me felt relieved that I did not die, but a part of me also wished that I had… died. I realized then that I was feeling exhausted and incapable of handling this situation with her, such that I was actually hoping for death just to be released from this torturous situation. I feel as though of all things that I done right in life, she was not one of them, that somehow I could never do right by her and that I could never do or be enough for her.