Then there are my dogs.
This is an altogether far more difficult proposition. In the absence of us having children, our dogs were our children. They are her children now, and I have no visitation rights.
We had two dogs together previously, Shiva and Shanti. They were rescues from the SPCA Randburg, South Africa. Shanti got sick one day, she'd somehow gotten Parvovirus. The day we went together to the vet to check up on her, only to be told she'd died was awful. I seem to recall a lot of that awfulness was due to an acid come down. But I guess that's another story for another day.
Shiva managed to live to a ripe old age, with busted hip never slowing her down. She had a mean streak to her. At the time, my parents also had a dog. Melissa the Basset. She was a special Basset. As a pup, she followed me everywhere. She loved to sing when I played guitar. She was the boss of the house. She used to use the old, fat, blind, happy Labrador as a step ladder to get to the food on kitchen counters.
Shiva and Melissa used to fight. It was around the time my brother and her used to fight. Badly. I was stuck in the middle. Between friends, her, my family, drug addiction and recovery. I chose her. I thought she was my future. She was my everything. Shiva ultimately ended up being the cause of poor Melissa's death. They fought, Melissa's back broke. She screamed. Shiva went for the death blow. It was not a good day. That was the day I had to say goodbye to Milly Bum, the most special Basset.
That's life. It ends.
Then about six or seven years ago, when we still lived in Buen Orden (good order, ironic), we went out to meet one of her friends. Was not a fan. But, a happy wife made me happy. Her friend was more than a little unreliable. The two of us sat at a bar, ordered a beer and a wine, had a smoke, and noticed an American Staffordshire Terrier walking in the road. I went to the gentlemen nearby and asked him if the pup was his. He said no. He was looking after it for someone. Would I like to buy it?
She was beautiful. She was Bonita. She was our first dog as a married couple. She completed us. And to be honest, this was probably the happiest and most fulfilled part of my life. I was too stoned and occupied with video games and playing a role to even notice the happiness. If one dog made us happy, two dogs made us even happier.
Boni got her Clyde, and she was the happiest big sister. They played endlessly. Running up and down the hallway, chasing each other, launching themselves into the couch before running off again. Clyde was a sensitive, scared and nervous little boy. But the long walks through the River Park in Valencia made him comfortable and a central member of the pack.
Then we had to move. Our wonderful flat in Buen Orden was changed. With short notice, we had little choice but to move to a less than ideal neighbourhood. Bars with daily drunks replaced the idyll of Buen Orden. Closer to the park meant more time in the park, with my two dogs. It was still amazing. But she got antsy. She wanted more than just a rental. She wanted us to own a house. Together.
Her happiness was my happiness. We left Nou Moles, and found our home in the village of Albalat Dels Sorells, outside of the city. A village idyll, open spaces and endless park space in which to walk Boni and Clyde. That is when Bella joined us. The crazy little girl was the perfect middle ground between the two, and our pack grew larger. It was bliss. I started writing again and finished my first book. I thought it would be easy to get published. It was not. I felt that failure, it was difficult. I buried my feelings. She had no reason to know. I started my next book, influenced by the world outside the city and the empty plots in the village.
Then came covid, and with it came Biggles, the most recent addition to the pack. Our pack was now the six of us, and everything felt so permanent. This wonderful quiet outside the city world of just us. I think I might have been happy. I can't quite remember. I grew 12 plants during the lockdown and smoked them all. It was not exactly good for my mental health.
Then came the collapse. Out of the blue, everything came apart at the seems: my mental health, our relationship, my world imploded. I had to leave them all behind. With them lies my heart. Wherever I go without them, I will be incomplete.
I am trying hard to leave them behind and let them go. Her, I get, she made her choice. She chose not me. But my dogs, they never chose. They only ever loved. As I love them. But they are gone. Nothing more than fragments of memory, barely visible in the rear view mirror as I move forward towards the nowhere destination of no idea.
I miss my dogs. They are now just another thing she has taken from me. My youth, my love, my house, my dogs. She has it all. I have heart ache and a receding hairline. I really do not think it was a fair trade.
Where to from here? Forward I guess. It is so odd to have nothing tying me down, nothing connecting me to anywhere. It is liberating and terrifying. If I were a younger man, I would be excited. However, I feel my age. I do not want to be alone, and I am no way healthy enough to not be. It is an awful cleft in which I find myself.
