Tim, Gone 2 years, in loving memory
April 5th, 2009
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This has little to do with science, actually nothing, but it has a bit to do with this page.
Sorry there are no pics on this post. There are some on a link at the bottom. I have many but I can’t look at them today.
I started this page in 2007 as part of an effort to get my mind off of things and do something positive. On April 5 2007, I lost the best friend I have ever had. His name was Tim. He was a dog, which I suppose, to many, makes it not a very big deal.
You probably never met Tim and never will now. That’s too bad, because you would have liked him. Everyone liked him. He was just a very good boy. He was very friendly, but extremely polite. The word “polite” is not something you generally use in reference to a dog, but the thing about Tim was that he was very welcoming, very happy to meet new people, but not at all annoying or jumpy. If he saw you and you looked friendly, he’d walk up to you, his head out and his tail gently wagging. No running, jumping, licking, just a very polite, mild-mannered greeting.
He was always well behaved and people commented on that. He was also very happy. That’s one of his defining traits. He loved his life and the people around him and the dogs around him. He did whatever I asked him and when we played ball, went for a walk or went to the park to play with other dogs, he’d be so happy he’d jump up or run in a little circle for a few seconds. He was very smart as well. He loved learning new tricks and new behaviors. He loved to play but he would get bored of the same thing. First he fetched a ball, but then that got a bit boring so we moved onto catching it, then catching it on a bounce.
He wasn’t a barker, but he barked at the appropriate times. He was very good about being approperate. He’d give a little bark of happiness when playing or bark at the door when he had to go out. He never had an accident in the house or anywhere.
He was a very caring compassionate guy. One time I had a fever and he layed next to me in my bed all day. I remember feeling really sick and groaning. I felt something on my chest and opened my eyes. His paw was on me and he was looking at me.
I always wondered how much he knew, how much he understood. He clearly knew some things I said. He enjoyed being talked to. I’d sit there and talk to him when we were out driving or something and he’d look right at me and listen. I’m not so crazy as to believe he knew everything I was saying, although he certainly knew a few phrases. However, despite not knowing, he’d still listen intently and liked being talked to. I think it was simply the fact that he knew my attention was fixed on him. He knew when he was being addressed. No matter how much I talked to him or petted him, he never seemed to lose his appreciation. Just saying hi to him made him so happy. He was always so happy just to see me.
Some dogs have been shown to understand hundreds of words and phrases. I’ll never really know how much he knew, how much he understood, how aware of things he was. Clearly, however, he tried very hard to do the right thing.
He was very attached to me, probably because he spent nearly all his time with me since he was a puppy. When he was a puppy, he was very small. He was so small the breeder didn’t know if he’d live. The name comes from “Tiny Tim.” He was so tiny he couldn’t nurse. His brothers and sisters crowded him out. The breeder bottlefed him and then later put him in with another dog which had recently given birth. He was three months and his adoptive siblings were newborns, yet they were about his size. Despite this he grew up healthy and strong. He turned out to be a very healthy, very happy little guy.
But he only lived for two and a half years. He was outside this time two years ago. It was close to time for his dinner, but he seemed to be enjoying himself outside in the fresh air, so I decided to leave him out and give him his dinner later. That fateful decision killed him. He used to run toward cars when they were leaving. He loved to go for a ride. There was a simple rule: If you’re leaving, just go slow out the driveway and look in the rearview mirror. Tim will likely be near the car, and it’s simply an issue of going very slow and being careful. My brother was in a hurry and didn’t do that. Tim was not used to a car blowing out so fast.
He survived initially but was mortally wounded. I rushed him to the vet where he clung to life for a couple of hours. We tried to save him. He was bleeding into his lungs. He slipped in and out of consciousness. He was getting oxygen and we tried so hard. He tried so hard. He didn’t want to die. He had such a good life. If he could have held on, if he could have kept it up, he might have gotten to the point where the blood started to clot and stop and then finally he’d begin to heal. But he didn’t. He gave it every ounce of strength he had but he died in my arms.
I expected to outlive him, but never for him to have such a short life. He deserved so much more. I had so many friends yet to meet him, and so many things to do with him. Places I planned on taking him to hike (he loved to hike), things I planned on teaching him. He never lived to be old. He died a little boy with so much life left.
I’ll never forget him or stop missing him. Missing him so very very much. It doesn’t get any easier with time. He didn’t deserve this. If only I hadn’t been lazy and had let him in when it was his dinner time. It’s funny, he was such a happy guy he would even enjoy his food. He would go over wagging his tail and munch it a bit and then walk over to me to put his head out to be petted and then he’d walk back to his food for a few more bites. It’s as if he was thanking me for giving him a meal. Gratefulness is one thing you don’t normally associate with a dog.
What a good good little boy he was. What a good job he did.
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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April 5th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Just sad.
I have lost animal companions too, and the pain is real.
April 5th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
He wasn’t just a dog, he was a friend and that transcends species. He sounds like he had better qualities than most humans, or at least a significant portion of them. I hear you on how it was tragic and shocking. I’ve had a couple of dogs. One lived to 15 and by the time she died she had been very sedentary and we knew she was at the end. The other dog I had died of cancer, but only at 8 years old, not young, but it was a shock because she was in what seemed like good health. To me, the two losses were very different. One was natural and came when it should have and the other seemed like we lost a battle or did something wrong by not realizing she was sick earlier.
I don’t believe loss is something you ever get over. You get past the period of acute grief, but it’s always something you carry with you. I still miss friends and family members from years ago. It’s not like it eats at me every day, but I never completely lose the sadness. He was special to you and always will be.
This is where religion is useful. It’s not that I like religion but it has its value as a coping mechanism. If you believe that this happened for a reason which was good in the end, like it happened to make you stronger or because he was needed in heaven, then that helps. It also helps if you think he is not gone but is in an idealistic which you’ll meet him in again. Some people I really don’t think would be able to ever live their life if they didn’t have this belief to keep them going.
April 5th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Well, as far as religion and dealing with it goes, I have a friend who is very Christian and I brought up to him that I thought the idea of heaven was problematic. Wouldn’t infinite life mean you would run out of things to do for stimulation? Doesn’t the idea of perfection contain paradoxes? For example, lets say in heaven you can have anything you wish for. Yet in life you get your most satisfaction out of creating something that is challenging to create. How could you have any satisfaction if you can have the end product without effort? And what if you get the ultimate satisfaction from helping others, but there are no problems in heaven to help with?
He said that he didn’t know but that it was a different plain of existance, a different reality and that the laws of causality, effect, time and so on don’t work the same there. It works out so that any apparent paradoxes are fixed and we can’t understand it until we get there. He said “All you have to know is that it is perfect and nothing like that applies.”
That seems, to me, like the ultimate fantasy to quell your feelings of sadness, if you can buy into it. All injustices are fixed, everyone finds what they want and they all live happily ever after.
Personally, much as that would bring me comfort to believe that, I can’t delude myself into thinking something which has no evidence to support it. I believe that death is the worst thing you can have happen to you. Yes, it’s inevitable but it’s also infinately terrible. Death is non-existance and nothing is worse than that.
No matter how bad things get it’s never as bad as nonexistance. Nonexistance isn’t even comperable. It’s like division by zero – it doesn’t work out, but it;s something that’s there.
I know that I will die someday and that’s not something I’m at peace with. If I thought about it, then I’d never get over it. It’s the paradox of not being able to do anything about it. So I just don’t think about it. When it happens, I’ll no longer worry about it.
For those I’ve been close to who have died, I believe there is no way I can ever be at peace with that. I feel that it is so infinately tragic, so horrible, so unspeakably unaccptable that it’s never going to be something that one can be okay with. It something I don’t think can be accepted, but it’s something you live with because you have to. It’s something I try not to think about because it’s a 100% loss and its impossible to resolve it, so it’s best not to let it destroy onesself.
April 5th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
drbuzz0 said:
If you are a Christian and you do believe in Heaven then you should know the Bible says that you will sit at the feet of God to worship and idolize him. Forever. And it will give you total satisfaction, just to gaze upon the countenance of the Divine.
Tell me again why would I want to spend eternity licking the boots of this egotistical god? Oh yes I remember because if I don’t he will have me will burn in everlasting torment in Hell.
April 5th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
DV82XL said:
Yeah I never got some of that whole insecurity thing with the supreme being. Despite being perfect and infinitely powerful, he seems to need to be reminded of how great he is a lot and demands that everyone go out of their way to demonstrate how great they think he is.
I guess it’s not surprising. We already knew he had anger management problems and is prone to throwing fits. I guess a deep seated insecurity might be the reason for that.
Personally, I think it’s kinda warped. I mean, someone who wants constant praise and doesn’t even feel self-conscious about it? I’m really great at doing a few things. For example, I can eyeball when a picture is level better than most people I know and I’m pretty good at getting CD’s to work when they’re scratched by buffing the surface with rubbing compound and CD repair stuff to the correct amount that it will be read by a cd rom. I can also make a sound by squeezing the air out from between the palms of my hands, which apparently not everyone can do.
I’d still feel really weird if people were praising me all the time for this stuff. Occasionally might be cool, everyone likes compliments, but it gets weird.
April 6th, 2009 at 5:56 am
DV82XL said:
If that were actually true, I may prefer an eternity of pain.
Luckily, I believe that that’s a whole lot of bollocks. We are (literally) God’s children and an eternity of bootlicking would be as unpleasant for him as it would be for us (imagine the crowds!). Everlasting torment is a myth. Punishment cannot be applied without a law and if God is just, the punishment must match the crime (and incidentally it would be totally unjust to punish for a crime against a law that is not known).
I believe that we will have a life quite similar to what we have here. I also firmly believe I will see my cat again (I would believe that I will see my brother/sister/other-dead-relative but they’re all alive still…).
Sorry about your dog.
April 6th, 2009 at 8:54 am
[Other] Matthew said:
And the Biblical authority for this particular dogma?
You see it’s all well and good to imagine whatever afterlife you want, however the foundational premise of all major religions is that there exists a body of text that is both divinely inspired and authoritative, which accurately describes the afterlife, in infallible detail.
In the Book of Revelations , John the apostle saw three future heavenly activities.
The first one is serving God (Revelation 22:3).
The second activity is seeing: We “shall see His face” (Revelation 22:4). “Now we see in a mirror, dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12), but in heaven we shall see our Savior face to face, and we “shall be like Him” (1 John 3:2). This is what Revelation 22:4 means when it says, “His name shall be on their foreheads.”
Finally,we shall serve our King “forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).
April 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
DV82XL said:
About the necessity to have a law to follow it, http://scriptures.lds.org/en/2_ne/9/25-26#25
I don’t recall where I read what day-to-day life will actually be like. Mostly it is through inference of other sources.
DV82XL said:
Not all major religions believe that the bible is the first, last and only word of God. In fact the bible itself rejects this very idea.
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/prov/29/18#18
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/james/1/5#5
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/amos/3/7#7