| Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 103
| My first dog.
This is a bit delayed, but wanted to get it off my mind, maybe get some closure. I grew up in India, and was never allowed a dog as a kid, but my aunt lives in a rural farmhouse a couple of hours away, and pretty much took in any stray she found injured on the street. Neutering at such a scale was out of our reach, so we did our best and fed all the dogs on the street in a huge trough filled with leftover scraps each day. It was our makeshift shelter, and my aunt- bless her soul, does the best she can even today. She finds homes for as many of them as she can, cares for the sick ones or takes them to the vet and has a large yard where they play and sleep. All this on a one-salary income and zero contributions, financial or otherwise.
When I was in elementary school, the first stray my aunt took in gave birth to a litter of 6 pups, of which only 3 survived. One of them was "mine". Couldn't take her home (my mom is terrified of any living thing that isn't human), but my aunt kept her for me. She lived for a good 12-13 years, was the sweetest dog I have ever seen, and it broke my heart when she passed on. We called her Timms. It may seem cruel to laugh about it, but she only bit one human 4 times in her life. Our postman. She probably weighed in at 30 lbs, but thought she was a giant.
I remember holding her when she was a couple of hours old and going "ewww" when she took her first poop in my 7 year old hands. Timms looked like a little white rat. She was a light yellow-beige with a white star on her forehead. A mutt, but a beautiful one.
She would follow me to the market place which was a few miles walk from the house, or to the playground, or even the railway station when I left to go back home. We would climb up to the roof of the farmhouse with food stolen from the kitchen, and I would talk while she looked on with those soft puppy eyes and shake her head sympathetically. She would not chase after anyone else in that manner- not even my aunt who I suppose was the one who actually fed and truly cared for her.
I remember seeing her standing all alone at the railway platform as the train rolled away looking all forlorn and consequently greeting me with kisses when I went back to visit the next weekend. She knew I was getting to the farmhouse when I was half a mile away- I used to walk there from the railway station. Timms was my confidante when I was sure boys were monsters made to torture 8 year old girls into surrendering their secret stamp collection, when I had my first adolescent argument with my mom, when I broke up with my first boyfriend, and when I was studying for my SAT's and applying to schools in the US and praying I would get aid. She was the one who would eat up my vegetables for me when I was little and thought everything except chocolate should be made illegal. When I look back, I wonder how someone so small could eat so much. I remember my uncle joking about how many poor orphans we could feed instead of feeding Timms every day. She was a bottomless pit.
Every time I think of her, it brings me to tears. When she was gone I burst into tears and refused to talk for days. Then I never mentioned her again.
Timms passed away of pesticide poisoning from nearby fields one new years eve, and I remember arriving at my aunts farmhouse before we left for our new years bash and looking for her, only to be told she was with our neighbors. I knew she had been ill for a few weeks, and never forgave myself for not being there when she was leaving our world.
I found out after the party she had passed on earlier that day, and my aunt, uncle and cousin had held back their own grief to make sure they didn't ruin the occasion for me, as I was about to move to the states and it would be my last new years with them for a long time.
We have lost countless pups or dogs before and after her, but I never felt that sort of bond that I felt with my Timms, until I found Kobe. We actually lost a litter of 8-10 week old pups to the same pesticides over a span of 2 weeks, one by one. Even though we had found homes for most of them. But for some reason even that slow, long-drawn, repeated torture was not as bad as losing my Timms.
I hope heaven exists, because I know thats where she would be. The loss of a treasured pet is comparable to losing a member of the family, sometimes worse, because no one loves you so unconditionally at all times. I suppose we are actually crying about losing that feeling of knowing that you are someone's whole world, and whatever you do, they love you because it's you. The way they love you never changes, no matter what you say to them.
This is my way of paying tribute to her, as the grief is as fresh as it was all those years ago. I have never spoken about it, but spent so many nights crying myself to sleep when I saw or felt something that reminded me of my Timms. I feel blessed to have found my Kobe, as he is so much like her in nature, and fortunately has no issues with our mailman here. As for Timms, she lives on in my heart. |
