Post by ecaitlynn on Mar 10, 2010 18:57:33 GMT -5
I lost Dixon on March 4th -- his sixth birthday. I have thought about posting here, but I'm having such a hard time accepting that he is gone.
I had him for less than two years, and from the first day, I knew that his life would not be long. But I thought we could maybe make it to ten years.
That day was always there -- floating in the future like that portion of the asphalt, shimmering and disappearing in the distance on a hot, summer day. Always far off; never to be reached while on the journey -- or so I thought. The day Dixon would die. Now I have hit that day, like a speed bump, over too fast and too hard. Then gone. Now the minutes fly by too fast -- taking me, kicking and screaming silently, farther away from the last moment I touched him, felt him near me.
Dixon was a dream come true -- the horse I had begged for through childhood and dreamed of as an adult. He had been worked too hard, too young, but it did not break his spirit or his beautiful, sweet disposition.
I called him Secretariat because he had the same markings as that great race horse -- and despite his intermittent lameness, he was fast as lightning.
Yesterday I picked up his ashes. They came in a basket-ball sized blank white box, heavy and dense. His broken body, committed to flames and returned to me, present-like. I am so afraid I will forget what he smelled like, sounded like, what the steam rising from his body was like, and what it was like to be the person who could make him nicker and perk up. I don't know where he is. I can picture celestial pastures and heavenly horse racing, but I really don't know where he is -- and that scares me more than anything. I don't know.
I promised him before he died that I would find him again -- but the immensity of that promise stuns me. How? How can I begin to keep that promise?
The box sits on my floor. The box -- plain, white, unmarked -- blank. This is how my future feels, without him. I love you always, Dixon.
I had him for less than two years, and from the first day, I knew that his life would not be long. But I thought we could maybe make it to ten years.
That day was always there -- floating in the future like that portion of the asphalt, shimmering and disappearing in the distance on a hot, summer day. Always far off; never to be reached while on the journey -- or so I thought. The day Dixon would die. Now I have hit that day, like a speed bump, over too fast and too hard. Then gone. Now the minutes fly by too fast -- taking me, kicking and screaming silently, farther away from the last moment I touched him, felt him near me.
Dixon was a dream come true -- the horse I had begged for through childhood and dreamed of as an adult. He had been worked too hard, too young, but it did not break his spirit or his beautiful, sweet disposition.
I called him Secretariat because he had the same markings as that great race horse -- and despite his intermittent lameness, he was fast as lightning.
Yesterday I picked up his ashes. They came in a basket-ball sized blank white box, heavy and dense. His broken body, committed to flames and returned to me, present-like. I am so afraid I will forget what he smelled like, sounded like, what the steam rising from his body was like, and what it was like to be the person who could make him nicker and perk up. I don't know where he is. I can picture celestial pastures and heavenly horse racing, but I really don't know where he is -- and that scares me more than anything. I don't know.
I promised him before he died that I would find him again -- but the immensity of that promise stuns me. How? How can I begin to keep that promise?
The box sits on my floor. The box -- plain, white, unmarked -- blank. This is how my future feels, without him. I love you always, Dixon.
