Connections...Dogs and Dads

My earliest memory hovers around two. One of them not so good, but not awful. I had to have surgery around that age. I actually remember being wheeled down the halls and they had cartoon characters on the wall. I remember thinking "This does not make me feel better at all!"

My other early memory is Taffy, our pug. Well, really it was my dad's dog. She WORSHIPED my dad! She also could tell time, I promise! That dog knew when 5pm was and almost on the dot! She would pace and whine and almost go crazy. She knew daddy was coming! For some odd reason, my parents kept her tied up in the kitchen. The only place where we didn't have carpet so I assume that is why. So poor Taffy had to stay there and wait for people to notice her. When I was little, I played with her a lot. I spent a lot of time by myself and so she was my playmate. She got dressed up, she was subjected to playing school, doctor, house, or whatever. She was a good sport. But when it was almost five, her willingness fizzled and her attention span was GONE! Outside she had freedom. She was fun too! I could get her worked up pretty good to where she would do insane laps around our above ground pool...bunches of them. Her face looked like it was smiling although it was just her way of trying to suck in as much air as a pug could! AND SOMETIMES, on a VERY rare occasion, my mom would let her off her rope in the house to hang with me inside. That did not last because she had it in for my brother. She would sneak off when she could and poop in his room and ONLY his room! Hilarious! (Of course not to him!)

My dad was called home to God when I was 13. Taffy became my connection, my memory launcher. Odd? Maybe so. But she was. Plus she was something to cuddle, cry on and talk to. She wouldn't tell anyone what I said and sometimes she even seemed sad with me. She sat with me, by my side often, and seemed to just listen. There were a few times I laid by her in the kitchen, on the floor, cried for awhile and fell asleep to the sound of the awful but comforting pug snore.

Sometimes, I think we both expected at five for Daddy to come home.
And sometimes, I think we were sincerely let down when he didn't.

Today I have two pugs. Tinkerbelle and Elvis. They are my shadows. If I walk, they walk. If I sit, so do they. If I nap, well DUH! They are dreadfully so ugly that they are adorable. Some days they are insanely annoying. But they are my memory triggers. I am not saying I would forget my dad otherwise. But I cannot hug him. (That still makes me cry sometimes.) What I can do is hug them. I can look at them and see Taffy, I can still see our  kitchen and her going frantic when she heard my dad's work truck roll in! I can look at them and she her sitting in our van (the kind with the hump in the middle over the engine).She sat on that hump in the middle of the front two seats waiting for the OK to jump in his lap. She would sit on his lap as he drove and look out the window. People would point and smile (or laugh)...I remember!

They are my memory triggers. They are my tangible, love-able memories.