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Damn you, internet, for making me cry.
17 years ago
I was watching Hyadain's videos on Youtube--a practice I must HEAVILY, HEAVILY endorse--when I stumbled over a piece called 'My first friend'. Thinking it was a lovely sounding piece, I decided I'd look to the subtitled translated version first.
What I found was something beautiful, sad, and heartrending, and that opened a memory of mine that I really don't often access.
I was very young, extremely so, when we had Berlin. She was a strong, healthy beagle, and I remember, even as young as five or six years old, being able to curl up aside her and rest my head on her, rubbing her flank with my hand. She never objected, and seemed to always know when it was I needed comforting, in a way no dog since ever has. She was large as I was, or thereabouts, and I remember feeling that, although the people around me were full of secrets, and anger, and all sorts of darkness, there was no room in her heart for any malice at all.
Even now, though I don't remember how she looked that well, I remember how she felt.
My world was confusing, and dark, and scary, and the people I was supposed to love had no love for me. But animals... they just KNEW, good or bad, the way people know if it's warm or cold, no matter how well I hid it from people--and hid myself from people.
Berlin died before I was ten years old. She died of cancer, and I hope the pain wasn't terrible for her--I was too young to really understand. It rends my heart to think of her now, still looking at me with a bemused, curious look, like a puppy that didn't belong to her. Maybe I was. But in a world where people knew boundless ways to be cruel without seeming to be, in a world I wasn't welcome, I found a spot of light by associating myself with a creature that wasn't human at all.
I've not had a dog since. I've been around dogs, but never owned one. It never felt right--In part because I'm not a fan of the hyper, stupid mutts my family owns, but also in part because that memory is something I cherish, something I don't think I can ever replace.
Every time, every time my family spoke of replacing a pet that had died, I hated them for it. You don't REPLACE living things. You can't. All you do.. is meet new ones.
What I found was something beautiful, sad, and heartrending, and that opened a memory of mine that I really don't often access.
I was very young, extremely so, when we had Berlin. She was a strong, healthy beagle, and I remember, even as young as five or six years old, being able to curl up aside her and rest my head on her, rubbing her flank with my hand. She never objected, and seemed to always know when it was I needed comforting, in a way no dog since ever has. She was large as I was, or thereabouts, and I remember feeling that, although the people around me were full of secrets, and anger, and all sorts of darkness, there was no room in her heart for any malice at all.
Even now, though I don't remember how she looked that well, I remember how she felt.
My world was confusing, and dark, and scary, and the people I was supposed to love had no love for me. But animals... they just KNEW, good or bad, the way people know if it's warm or cold, no matter how well I hid it from people--and hid myself from people.
Berlin died before I was ten years old. She died of cancer, and I hope the pain wasn't terrible for her--I was too young to really understand. It rends my heart to think of her now, still looking at me with a bemused, curious look, like a puppy that didn't belong to her. Maybe I was. But in a world where people knew boundless ways to be cruel without seeming to be, in a world I wasn't welcome, I found a spot of light by associating myself with a creature that wasn't human at all.
I've not had a dog since. I've been around dogs, but never owned one. It never felt right--In part because I'm not a fan of the hyper, stupid mutts my family owns, but also in part because that memory is something I cherish, something I don't think I can ever replace.
Every time, every time my family spoke of replacing a pet that had died, I hated them for it. You don't REPLACE living things. You can't. All you do.. is meet new ones.
