Zooprepper51
Tourist
Many years ago. They wanted to keep you, but couldn't care for you. I spent the better part of an hour tweezing ticks from your ears. You got a bath, one which you fought tooth and nail to escape from. I didn't know it yet, but you saved my life that day. We spent the next couple of years getting to know each other to the finest detail. We became so in tune with one another it was like we had been married for a hundred years. It wasn't like that at first though. Nine long months had came and gone since my first love had passed when I met you. I needed time to open up, and so did you. You scarcely tolerated me touching you the first few weeks, but I was persistent. Starved of love and connection, I rarely left your side. That summer we went to our home away from home in the country. We hadn't been there a week before I found a secluded place to sneak an early morning romp under the trailer, just behind the tin siding. I'll never forget the smell of that place. It was cool and dry, fresh and almost salty, like the ocean distilled down to its purest essence. As the years went by, I grew ever fonder of you, but never understanding just how special you were to me. It was like a dream in that I couldn't capture any one moment in my mind, purely at the mercy of ever marching time, swept along by it's gentle embrace. The magnificence of our relationship was lost on me in my inexperience and I failed to realize the precious nature of each moment with you. I had been working and going to school in the last years, never having as much time as I wanted, but counting the seconds until I'd return home to you. The peace and comfort I felt only in your presence was some days the only thing that got me through. I could overcome any obstacle with only the promise of your smiling face to greet me on my return. You gave my life value when in myself I saw only failure. You made me feel alive when I thought I'd be better off dead. You made me happy on my darkest of days. Except for one.
You left me on a Wednesday. Five years we had spent together, and that day at first started like any other. I came home after school and got dressed for work. I had exactly enough time to walk the two miles to my job when I left. Not fifteen feet from the driveway I saw you lying there, like you often did, by the side of the road. But it was different this time. You liked the flat ground by the driveway, in the sun. You were facing the house angled up a steep incline on one side of the ditch. I approached, called your name, and then I saw the most heart wrenching scene I have ever witnessed. The driver never left a note or came back to explain. I buried you that day, next to the tulip poplar tree by the garden. To this day I've never cried over you. My heart is still too broken to believe you're gone, taken by an unflinching, indifferent world too concerned with progress to stop and pay homage to a pure and selfless soul that has forever left it with an unfillable hole. I want you to know I'm forever grateful for the time I spent with you, for the love you shared with me, and for every day I got to start and end with you by my side. I cherish every moment we had, every misguided adventure, every masterfully choreographed romantic night, every lazy afternoon lounging on the couch, every sudzy bath time struggle, every happy spin dance greeting, every time you slapped me since learning how to shake, every last memory that I'll never forget. Thank you buddy, for everything. I love you.
You left me on a Wednesday. Five years we had spent together, and that day at first started like any other. I came home after school and got dressed for work. I had exactly enough time to walk the two miles to my job when I left. Not fifteen feet from the driveway I saw you lying there, like you often did, by the side of the road. But it was different this time. You liked the flat ground by the driveway, in the sun. You were facing the house angled up a steep incline on one side of the ditch. I approached, called your name, and then I saw the most heart wrenching scene I have ever witnessed. The driver never left a note or came back to explain. I buried you that day, next to the tulip poplar tree by the garden. To this day I've never cried over you. My heart is still too broken to believe you're gone, taken by an unflinching, indifferent world too concerned with progress to stop and pay homage to a pure and selfless soul that has forever left it with an unfillable hole. I want you to know I'm forever grateful for the time I spent with you, for the love you shared with me, and for every day I got to start and end with you by my side. I cherish every moment we had, every misguided adventure, every masterfully choreographed romantic night, every lazy afternoon lounging on the couch, every sudzy bath time struggle, every happy spin dance greeting, every time you slapped me since learning how to shake, every last memory that I'll never forget. Thank you buddy, for everything. I love you.
Because you feel the way you do now, you know that you truly loved them.