Lolly

Five years ago right now, I was alone. More alone than I'd been for nine years, nine months.

Sidney. Sweet Siddy-la, my Lolly, my Lolly-ya, Stinky Tuscadero, Funky Monkey, pup-head. Bebe'. Gooderest t'ing.

La was about four when I adopted her, and she was, as I still say to the Poobahs currently livening up my life, a particular favorite girl of mine. By the age of fourteen, she was still fairly spry and healthy, but she'd had some setbacks in the months before she died.

I remember all the lead up, I remember the way she lay on her bed next to the couch (a large old ottoman, I brought it downstairs while I tapped on my laptop and answered emails and such; the floor looked so hard, and she was closer to my touch) and put her head on a pizza crust I gave her - loving it, but unable to eat it.

She never got up again.

My mom came, with the new Buick she and my stepfather had bought, and she and I lifted Sidney lock stock and big bed into the back of it, and we drove to the vet. I know she was with me while Siddy died, and we spent time together after, but I do not remember the after.

I remember going back to the vet when ... she was taken care of. To pick up her ashes. I still have them, though never have really known quite what to do with them. She lives in the guest room. (My dad's ashes do not. Today was perhaps not a good day to read this. But then ... maybe so.)

One memory wraps around another, and one love skeins through others, never necessarily comes to an end.

And now I get to love Gossamer and Penelope.

And still hope I will ever be good enough for either of them.