You're Cut Off

Yesterday I was driving home, and one block from my house I saw a lost golden retriever. It was 18 degrees out. I stopped and called the dog over, made friends. Her name was Skylar, and she had a bandage around her neck that was wider than her collar. She seemed very friendly, and did the thing most goldens I've met have done, which was to insinuate her head right under my hand and kind of use it to pet herself.

As cold as it was, I really wanted to make sure I got her home. I thought of the sickening feeling I'd experienced once or twice, of not knowing where my own dog was. Her collar had a phone number, but no address. I dialed, and ran into a dead end. "The number you dialed has been disconnected..." I checked the number and tried again with the same result. Crap.

I walked a little way up the block, knocked on a couple of doors, and got absolutely nowhere. Nobody home, don't know the dog, etc. After a few minutes Skylar took off faster than I could follow her, into one backyard, then another, then another. She was gone. Irretrievably gone. I couldn't help her, could no longer communicate with her. I was cut off.

I don't need to draw you a fucking picture. I miss my dad at every moment. There turns out to be room for that emotion alongside nearly every other thing that occupies me. But more than the pain and feeling of loss, I wasn't prepared for the feeling of just being cut off. My entire relationship with my dad is frozen in time now. It can never become anything more than what it was. No more just telling him things he'd find funny, or comiserating about this or that political issue, or sending him pictures of his grandchildren, who called him Papa. No more.

So much has happened in my life since he died seven months ago, just as I assume a lot has happened in yours. Decisions made, milestones reached, pictures taken, occasions celebrated, etc. And I can't tell my dad about any of it. Not even about the dog I tried, but failed, to help yesterday. That really did happen, and I can only hope Skylar was soon safe at home. As bad as it feels to be cut off, I bet it's much worse for dogs.