One of the strange truths about owning "nothing" (except clothes, books, a little artwork, and small treasures) is that, in an odd sense, you own everything.
In the past, I never thought of myself as a dog person, or a pet person, given that I didn't have a stable place to house myself much less an animal. However, in the last five years or so, I have become very fond of two dogs who I had the privilege of living with. So I came into my most recent living situation knowing that something new was true of me -- I am capable of loving a dog. And slowly over the last fifteen months or so, I've grown to love the dog that lives here. I've been her constant presence off and on during the day, and take her for short walks. At times, I've been the person feeding her, or caring for her on the odd weekend. She has the most amazing eyes, and increasingly I've felt that, indeed, she "sees" the world in a profound way, and may even understand when I talk with her. Not being her owner, I found that I often tried not to love her too much. Coming from the background I come from, this isn't a good thing, "trying not to love", but I also have boundaries. Confusing.
On Wednesday, she disappeared. I won't go through the whole story, but she appears to be gone, despite a huge search effort. It doesn't help that winter finally hit with a vengeance, and we've had, like,10 degree F temperatures and 40 mph winds, which adds to the heartbreak. If it had had to happen, why not when it was 40 degrees with 10 mph winds?
I miss her terribly, the sound of her footsteps running up and down the stairs, her scratching at the back door, her eager attention when I opened up a can of tuna or soup. I miss walking her. I don't enjoy walking for the sake of it, but to walk a dog is fine. She would sometimes look up at me, like, can't you walk faster? But then she'd slow down and poke around in the dirt, and it would be me trying to get her to move along. She trusted me, and I trusted her. I had come to love her, and I think she really, really liked me (and possibly loved!).
When it is not your dog, not too many people offer you condolences, and since no one knows what happened, it's one of those grey etiquette areas anyway. But I can tell that my heart must be far more open than it has ever been, because it has broken. I know there is no death in the divine mind (and no loss), and I know she wasn't "mine", but it will be a long time before I don't see her and hear her everywhere I go.
