You never really forget first love, right? It is the same with the first woofer you pet, memories of my first pet are still afresh all these years later.
It has been 13 years since Rusty, named after celebrated writer Ruskin Bond, marked her way into my life and with the very first inkpot that she spilt over the ruled notebook, she had me inked forever. Little had I known that the blots would seep through from my childhood to youth along with chords struck and comic books collected. Rusty has earmarked nearly every episode from my memory. The crests and troughs─ the jejune crushes, the fear of organic chemistry, the heights of jovial times, and the ignominy of loss; she has been everywhere with me.
Memories of my first pet
13 human years converted to a dog’s life span is 91 dog years. I know the eventual end and although I try to steer my thoughts to a different thought stream, every time when I leave the hills, I wonder if I am going to see the protagonist of my childhood in vivid animations when I return. I wish I could have been more expressive but then it too would have been an epic fail for my words will always lack the warmth of the wagging tail.
What you lose when you lose your dog…
And it is my solemn desire to be back at Soar valley and relive the puerile memories. The way we ran like berserk kids with no care in the world, tossing life as it came. Down the years, you have remained the same totem of spirit while I have faded. But I know that you can read right through to me, a mere human I am. I have had a fair share of memory montage and if I were to be caught in a time warp, this precise moment would be wherein I would love to be entrapped.
And it is always in your beady eyes that my sporadic thought raids find peace. I wish for the world and with a whiff, I renounce it.
See also: RIP Rusty and Letters to departed dogs
It’s the luckier kids who get to grow up with dogs to frolic with! We are family where all the kids have stories to tell about their best companions as kids, I grew up with one who followed me around everywhere and had to be accommodated on my chair right next to me, no matter how little the space 🙂
With their dogs would be many a kids idea of how they would like to be caught in a time warp 🙂
Thanks IHM!
Indeed there is no better way to grow up but in the company of furry friends. With dog hair emblazoned on your blazers, the brevity of the moments needs no further descriptions:) An entire era has passed me by, pains and pleasures have punctuated the path and out of everyone and everything, even my own very self, it is only the pawed pals have remained the same!
The time warp should be for real, but then those who believe in Alice’s rabbit burrow know that all it takes is a leap of fantasy:)
I began to trust again only when dogs came into my life. In them I found a reason to believe again. As you rightly said somewhere a thousand words can express less than one tail wag can
“for my words will always lack the warmth of the wagging tail.”
Having grown up with furry siblings, I adore this little piece. Beautifully emoted :’)