06-13-2015, 01:30 AM
Another letter finds itself slid under Kalen's door, but this time it was there in the afternoon.
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Dear Kalen,
I wanted to tell you about my first love. It wasn't a woman, or a man, or really even a person. The first thing I remember actually having strong, unabashed affection for was Maya. She was an ancient Yorkie with hip dysplasia. I say that I loved Maya first and not my parents because children think of their parents as gods when they are young. Infallible. Omniscient. Omnipresent if you considered around the corner as a presence. This isn't a letter about the perceptions we have of our parents when we are young, this is a letter regarding love and loss.
It's funny how I'd almost forgotten about her, wondering if this is the act of love fading or time robbing us all of our memories; things become hazy, but some things are difficult to forget. I suppose that, in time, all things will fade or be distorted by time. Like the blind woman in Red Dragon when she was talking about a predatory cat- time had diluted the image of the animal so much that she wasn't sure what a tiger or a cougar or whatever it was didn't look anything like what an actual predatory cat looked like. I'm getting off topic. Maya didn't bark a lot. I remember that she didn't bark very much and was more prone to licking people half to death than eating a pair of shoes.
We got Maya when we put my great grandmother into a nursing home. Apparently, she'd gotten all of her shoe chewing out of her system because Nana Poirot was pretty insistent that she lost more pumps to that damned thing than any of her other dogs combined. Maya smelled like cigarettes when we first got her. I remember that much. I was little, I don't really remember an age but I remember carrying her around like a security blanket and she just seemed to tolerate it because little kids don't know how to be gentle with things. I remember trying, though.
It never dawned on me that Maya was old until she died. I was six when we had to bury Maya. Children deal with death differently than adults; when they're young enough, they don't understand euphemisms for death. My dad told me that Maya was sick and we lost her. Later in the month I got the flu and was convinced that if I did not stay with my parents at all times so they could find me, then I would get lost like Maya was lost. I think it's funny, not in a laughable way but in an odd thoughtful way, that we got Maya from a woman who was put in a place where our loved ones just wait to die. As an adult, I don't much care for nursing homes, mostly for selfish reasons. If push comes to shove, I'd appreciate it if my loved ones smothered me with a pillow instead of putting me in a nursing home. Now, i say this, but I probably don't mean it. I don't want anyone to go to prison on account of me having an inappropriate relationship with my continued existence. We're not here to talk about that, either. We're here to talk about Maya.
My mother explained, later, that Maya had died. Her body stopped working because she was sick, and then she was not coming back. She tried comparing Maya to the TV I knocked over and broke in the living room. The TV was broken and could not be fixed. It would not be coming back, it was gone. I found it odd to compare Maya to the television, because I didn't miss the television. Dad missed the television, but we got a new television and everything was fine. We tried to get a new Maya, but everything wasn't fine. We couldn't get another dog, because other dogs weren't Maya. They didn't do the same things as Maya.
Maya was not a television set.
Eventually, I missed Maya less. I found other friends. I think I missed Maya because she was a real, tangible friend. Your parents aren't your friends when you are a child, they're your parents. Until school started, my friends were largely imaginary or incorporeal. Sometimes, it was hard to tell which was which, but Maya was alive. Flesh and blood and wiggly. Anyway, that was Maya.
Anyrate, on a vaguely related note- while we're talking about those no longer living- I'm hitting up an estate sale this weekend. I don't know what I'm looking for yet, but I figure I'll know it when I see it. I promise I won't bring home a piano (that's going somewhere else), but if you want to join me I'd love the company.
-EP
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Dear Kalen,
I wanted to tell you about my first love. It wasn't a woman, or a man, or really even a person. The first thing I remember actually having strong, unabashed affection for was Maya. She was an ancient Yorkie with hip dysplasia. I say that I loved Maya first and not my parents because children think of their parents as gods when they are young. Infallible. Omniscient. Omnipresent if you considered around the corner as a presence. This isn't a letter about the perceptions we have of our parents when we are young, this is a letter regarding love and loss.
It's funny how I'd almost forgotten about her, wondering if this is the act of love fading or time robbing us all of our memories; things become hazy, but some things are difficult to forget. I suppose that, in time, all things will fade or be distorted by time. Like the blind woman in Red Dragon when she was talking about a predatory cat- time had diluted the image of the animal so much that she wasn't sure what a tiger or a cougar or whatever it was didn't look anything like what an actual predatory cat looked like. I'm getting off topic. Maya didn't bark a lot. I remember that she didn't bark very much and was more prone to licking people half to death than eating a pair of shoes.
We got Maya when we put my great grandmother into a nursing home. Apparently, she'd gotten all of her shoe chewing out of her system because Nana Poirot was pretty insistent that she lost more pumps to that damned thing than any of her other dogs combined. Maya smelled like cigarettes when we first got her. I remember that much. I was little, I don't really remember an age but I remember carrying her around like a security blanket and she just seemed to tolerate it because little kids don't know how to be gentle with things. I remember trying, though.
It never dawned on me that Maya was old until she died. I was six when we had to bury Maya. Children deal with death differently than adults; when they're young enough, they don't understand euphemisms for death. My dad told me that Maya was sick and we lost her. Later in the month I got the flu and was convinced that if I did not stay with my parents at all times so they could find me, then I would get lost like Maya was lost. I think it's funny, not in a laughable way but in an odd thoughtful way, that we got Maya from a woman who was put in a place where our loved ones just wait to die. As an adult, I don't much care for nursing homes, mostly for selfish reasons. If push comes to shove, I'd appreciate it if my loved ones smothered me with a pillow instead of putting me in a nursing home. Now, i say this, but I probably don't mean it. I don't want anyone to go to prison on account of me having an inappropriate relationship with my continued existence. We're not here to talk about that, either. We're here to talk about Maya.
My mother explained, later, that Maya had died. Her body stopped working because she was sick, and then she was not coming back. She tried comparing Maya to the TV I knocked over and broke in the living room. The TV was broken and could not be fixed. It would not be coming back, it was gone. I found it odd to compare Maya to the television, because I didn't miss the television. Dad missed the television, but we got a new television and everything was fine. We tried to get a new Maya, but everything wasn't fine. We couldn't get another dog, because other dogs weren't Maya. They didn't do the same things as Maya.
Maya was not a television set.
Eventually, I missed Maya less. I found other friends. I think I missed Maya because she was a real, tangible friend. Your parents aren't your friends when you are a child, they're your parents. Until school started, my friends were largely imaginary or incorporeal. Sometimes, it was hard to tell which was which, but Maya was alive. Flesh and blood and wiggly. Anyway, that was Maya.
Anyrate, on a vaguely related note- while we're talking about those no longer living- I'm hitting up an estate sale this weekend. I don't know what I'm looking for yet, but I figure I'll know it when I see it. I promise I won't bring home a piano (that's going somewhere else), but if you want to join me I'd love the company.
-EP