May 12th is always a sober day for me, because it’s the anniversary of the day I lost Katy.

(Go back and read that old post if you don’t know the story. I’ll wait.)

Now, I know. If I hadn’t lost her 8 years ago today, I wouldn’t have had Chappy, and that’s unthinkable. And not just to me. Susan said on Ravelry last night that Harry was looking at her pictures and said, “Deb looks naked without Chappy.” A world without Chappy in it would be a darker place.

But–that’s true of Katy, too. There is no scenario that would have had both her and Chappy in my life at the same time. We’ve always been a one-dog household, and if I hadn’t lost her, I would never have even looked at the litter of puppies that Chappy came from. He would have gone to some other owner and we never would have known what we were missing.

Even if some bizarre miracle had occurred and I’d ended up with both of them, well, chances are Katy would have bossed him around. She was a protective dog and while we’d worked hard on her little possessive/temper issues (which had improved so much in her last few months they weren’t problems any more), still … I’m sure as a big sister, they would have flared up from time to time. (Because, aren’t little brothers supposed to be pests?) She wouldn’t have minded sharing her toys, but she would not have liked sharing her Mom. You know. Me.

You know that I would never give up Chappy. You know that I can’t even imagine my life without him.

But still.

Today, I miss Katy.

It’s interesting to think of all the things I do now that would be new to her. Blogging, for example. I didn’t even discover blogs to read until she’d been gone for three years, forget about writing my own.

She never saw me do real knitting, either. I’d pretty much put a hold on all my chewable, craft-type activities when she came into the house. I haven’t embroidered anything in over a decade, and have only worked on one (unfinished) quilt. I had started to think about knitting again, though, and had a trial knitting bag sitting in the family room for a while–a ball of yarn, a pair of needles, and a few rows of garter stitch–just to see what she would do.

And, spinning? I don’t know what she would have thought of spinning! Or of sheep and goats, though she would probably have been pretty calm about them, as long as they weren’t interested in her food. She saw me sit in front of the computer a lot–though I mostly wrote fiction, then. She saw me take lots of pictures, though not as many as I take now that I have blogs to feed. She helped me bake and cook, just like Chappy does, and kept me company while I read. She always greeted me at the door, and liked nothing better to nap with her chin or paw touching my leg. (Unlike Chappy who really prefers to sleep NOT touching anyone else.)

She was the first dog we ever took on vacation–to Martha’s Vineyard, of course–and she absolutely adored riding in the car. She never got carsick, although she had an unfortunate habit of swallowing things that weren’t digestible. She was also the reason I got my first camcorder, and my first digital camera. And why I still have clickers scattered around the house. I’m a huge fan of clicker-training, and can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am that I discovered a training method that meant I spent all of the 18 months I had her focusing on all the nice, beautiful, cute, GOOD things she did, rather than looking for and punishing the mistakes. I can count on one hand the number of times I actually got angry with her.

My life is certainly different without her. I’ve created an entire online identity around her little brother, and who knows what I would have been doing now if her tennis ball hadn’t bounced off that tree eight years ago. I can’t believe she would have been 10 years old this year. I can’t believe she’s been gone for eight of them. The world itself has changed so drastically. It was happier, easier back before 9/11, and the most difficult thing I had to worry about was teaching Katy not to growl at her grandparents on Monday mornings. Then, I lost her, 9/11 happened, the economy pretty much disappeared … and I got Chappy–my sunny, breezy, happy, easy little boy.

Nothing has been the same since I lost her.

But then, she changed  my life by coming into it in the first place. It would be a sadder, emptier place if she had never arrived at all.

Tags: Family, Katy, Jilly, Muppy // 10 Comments »