i miss my dog

It's been almost two years since Titus died. Some days seem to blur together and pass without much significance, but I remember the moment he died like a horrible snapshot. Time froze. I still think of him often. I loved that dog so much. He brought so much joy to my life. Probably unfairly to Joey, but I find myself comparing them. She is no comparison, and I hate it. I miss having the companionship that a sane and not half feral animal can provide to you. Joey loves us and I do love her too, but she is psychotic and very reactive. I'm holding out that she will calm down as she gets older. She does have some positive traits. You just have to search for them under her wild exterior. 

When Titus died it felt like a limb had been cut off. It was traumatic. We had given him a goofy voice and a personality. We would "talk" for him, and suddenly that part of our lives was gone forever too. I grieved in a way that I had never experienced before. I can remember being in shock, that floating feeling where everything else around you has fallen away. And you are stranded in the right now with a head that feels stuffed with thick cotton balls. The thing that would normally comfort you in a situation like this was the thing that had died. 

The finality of loss when someone dies seems so infinite. It's a bottomless pit. Where do you go from there? My heart felt like someone suddenly ripped a huge chunk from it, and it was just hanging in thin air, waiting to plummet. Like that moment on Tower of Terror before you freefall. I kept asking myself, "What am I going to do? What am I going to do?!" because he was like an antidepressant to me. When Titus died I had just gotten out of a bad depressive episode and it made me so scared. 

I felt guilty too, because he was an animal. I was losing it and I thought I had to hold it together because people wouldn't understand. I know people would understand, but the grieving mind is probably not the most rational. I constantly felt like I was in nothing, running in circles, reaching out for Titus when I only grabbed fog. Like trying to grab a vapor. I'm screaming GIVE ME BACK MY DOG. I WANT MY DOG BACK. YOU HAVE TO GIVE HIM BACK TO ME. But I knew that he didn't hear me and that it was all in vain. And then I wondered where he was, because the thought of him no longer existing was giving me so much anxiety. 

I do not know if animals will be in heaven, but I hope they are, and I'm not sure why they wouldn't be. It's kind of weird to me that this is a question that christians argue over sometimes. I try not to think about Titus just returning to dust and becoming nothing, because wow, that's depressing. I like to think that he and Jade and all the good dogs I've ever known are just waiting for me. And let's be real. The Lord knows in my wildest dreams Titus would be like Falcor from the Neverending Story and he would be able to talk to me. He would be HUGE, and let me fly on his back. So if by chance in the next life someone waves at you flying on their luck dragon rhodesian ridgeback hybrid, it's me.