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| Me and Horace going for a ride - he loved to go for rides with me - 1998 |
I dreamt I was in a hospital. Not as a patient but in the midst of walking the busy corridors of the hospital, with staff rushing to and fro.
I don't know what I was doing in the hospital. I wasn't a patient. I wasn't visiting anyone. But I was in the midst of all that cacophony.
Then around the corner of that busy hospital corridor I see my late Pomeranian dog Horace. Then I see two other orange Pomeranians following him. They looked lost. Horace when right by my. I shouted "Hey Horace!" He turned around and ran to me and jumped into my arms.
I recognized one of the other orange Poms as his daughter. However, I didn't recognize the third Pom. We had three Poms but the third one was a blonde.
Horace was the only dog I had that chose me. I purchased him from a pet shop in 1982. He died in 1998, at age 16 years. I have never gotten over this death. I haven't got a pet dog since because both Bill and I don't want to go through that pain again.
The only time I really cried in my life over the death of a living thing was when Horace died.
I had him put to sleep after he had a stroke and was totally limp. I didn't cry when I was holding him as the vet injected him with a fatal solution.
However, the next day, while at work I got to thinking of what my life would be like without Horace and I started to cry. A heart wrenching cry like I never had before. I was so embarrassed that I went into the bathroom and cried. I didn't want my co-workers to see me crying.
I felt desperate. I could get another dog but I could never get another "Horace." That dog loved me and I loved him.
I felt ashamed to feel this way about a dog. I have never felt this way about any human being. I have felt sad when those close to me have died. From my parents and friends and former co-workers but never the total sadness and feeling of loss that I felt when I realized that Horace would no longer be in my life.
After about ten minutes I was able to pull myself together and get back to work. However, I still felt this tremendous sense of loss that I would never be able to recover. Then, the more I thought about how to get through this pain, I came upon a solution. I convinced myself that when I die, my pain would end. If there is an afterlife, then I would be with my Horace again. If there is no afterlife, then I would know nothing, including the pain of his loss. Either way I felt some comfort knowing that eventually the pain of the loss and loneliness that I now felt would end.
However, every now and then I have these dreams. It's almost like Horace is telling me that he is waiting for me.