6 Months Later...

It's May, and Brody is still missing from my life. Despite my efforts I haven't been able to find her. Despite my prayers, my flyer distribution, my consultations with several animal communicators.....

The last 3 animal communicators I spoke to all told me she has found a home with someone: an older man, not too close from where we are but also not very far, in a brown-colored house. I have tried dropping fliers at every brown house around here. But perhaps my radius of MO was not large enough. I have an ad in the Pennysaver that I run every week, just hoping that one day the person who has her would see it and call us.

They told me that he is very fond of her. How could he not be? She's an awesome friend to have - affectionate, well-mannered, always so happy to just be with you - which is the very reason I want her back. But perhaps that's also a reason why that person would be reluctant to return her.

Sometimes I think of the day I would find her, imagine the scenario that would go down, how I would be driving around one day and just see a man with a little dog, and it would be her. I would pull over & jump out of the car all sick, run to her. She would perk up her ears and run to me ( oh God, does she even still remember me? I hope she does). We collide in an embrace of explosive joy - endless happy licks from her, a flood of tears from me. Then I would explain to the man who I am, how precious she is to me and how I lost her. He would be reluctant at first but eventually he would concede that she does, by virtue of my love and our friendship, rightfully belong to us (instead of him). I would thank him, offer him the reward we had offered in the flyer ($100, because that's all we could spare). I would apologize for taking his friend away from him, and tell him that if he should wish to adopt another friend from the shelter I would gladly pay the adoption fee for him. He would accept. I would tell him he can visit Brody whenever he liked. Then Brody and I would walk him home. I would let her bid him good bye and thank him for taking care of my baby all this time. Then she and I would go home, to this house where I have lived longer without her than with her, and the universe will be right once again.

I am still waiting. I am still holding out hope. Still stubborn in my mind that the powers that be would return us to each other because that's how things should be, because I have done nothing wrong, because to take this love away from me is cruel, because it's not fair when my neighbor chains her dog to a tree in the backyard and yet others give their friends away when it's no longer convenient to keep them. In my rational mind I know all those are moot. Life is not known for its fairness, and we are powerless against the twists and turns it dishes out. What I am hoping for is that I will prove to be special in getting my wish. As unlikely as that may be I still cannot bring myself to give up.

Lincoln Park - I cannot drive these streets now without shedding tears. It's painfully ironic to me that while we got our wish of buying our own house, shortly after passing that marker in our lives, we lost a friend. Sometimes I wonder if it had been some kind of cosmic exchange, if losing her had been a price. I'm trying to grasp at any flimsy filament of reasoning, any tenuous web that would suggest any kind of pattern of cause-and-effect because I cannot accept the unfairness of it all, because the thought of her pains me still. And it pains me more because there are people, including those close to me, who do not understand, who think my insistent love for something not human is unnecessary, who advise me to forget.
I cannot.