A year ago from today I got the news that Tiki had passed away. It is so weird to think that is has been a year already. Because of all the stuff going on in my life at the same time, I still feel like I never paid her passing the proper respect. I chose not to get her body or ashes, since I basically had no clue what to do with it. All I asked for was her collar and I still have that. When Kelly died, I had a sort of burial where I buried vet bills connected to her passing and other stuff with bad memories, so that was one way to get some closure.
With Tiki I never did anything of that sort. I kept her jackets and sweaters (in her old days she got chilly a lot easier) but I never figured out what to do with them. Two months ago or so, I finally threw them away.
I dunno. I don't necessarily think that a burial is that important, since I know the memory lives inside me and that's also how I want it to be. But at the same time I can't help but feel guilty somehow. I feel guilty that I didn't have more of a need to mark her passing. I put her collar next to a picture and that was it. I can't help but feel like I got over her too soon, or something.
Maybe it's like that because she never made it to the U.S., so I living in our new apartment in Cheektowaga, I wasn't confronted with anything which specifically reminded me about her so that made the loss easier to bear. Every new experience and memory was built without her presence and I was hardly ever confronted with situations or locations which specifically reminded me about her.
It's not that I don't miss her though. I miss her terribly and I am still feeling so horribly guilty about her passing. I still think about her every single day. Especially this last week or so, since it's now been a year since she died.
I always think of her as my teacher, since she was my first dog and I got her when I was 14 (in 1998) and as a 14 year old I thought I knew everything there was to know about dogs and of course there were no boundaries to what I was going to teach MY perfect dog. And she did learn a lot. She knew tons of tricks and she always learned any trick within minutes. But all the wisdom she taught me is so much more valuable.
I chose her for all the wrong reasons and in no way did she turn out to be the perfect "Wishbone" dog I planned she should be. She tipped over garbage cans, barked angrily at any black person she saw, killed a whole nest of baby hares, chewed car seat belts, locked herself in the car (more than once) and ate any piece of candy which wasn't carefully hidden away. By no means was she perfect but she was so much better than that. She was my teacher, my friend and my real life dog.
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