Who has been abandoned?

His signs haunt me. They are everywhere in the house. On the floor. On the switch board. On the kitchen floor. At the entrance of my room. He is everywhere. How does one wipe out four and half years of a relationship.

I committed a crime recently. A crime that is going to haunt me for years to come. A crime that I don't think i can ever redeem myself from. The crime of abandonment. I abandoned Spidy. My dog. Of course, I was not there when he was abandoned in an area unknown to him. And I wasn't there when he ran out of the car as soon as he was freed from his leash. And I am not there now.

All that I do now is wonder. Wonder where he is. What is he eating. Who is he with? If he is alive? If he has been bitten by other dogs? Wonder how he is surviving in the big bad world. And then am filled with overwhelming guilt. A guilt i don't want to feel. A guilt i don't want to sense. A guilt that I just want to bury deep down somewhere and continue living in denial.

But it all comes back. And simply intensifies. Each time I see his leash in the backseat of the car. The leash that I had bought lovingly when i got my first bonus at the current job. Or when i see the chewy sticks lying uneaten, when i see the half finished pedigree packet or his water bowl...

It a hard thing. Attachment. And detachment is punishment. I can't get over the fact that Spidy is not around anymore. The same dog who was there all through for 4.5 years is suddenly not in the house. It's worse than abandoning a child. A child can speak, cry, tell where or who he or she is. What can an abandoned dog tell? How will he even tell that he is no orphan? But an abandoned orphan. It's breaking me apart- this feeling that I will probably never see him in my life.

I want him back so bad. I don't want to even think of the reasons why we had to take the tough decision of abandoning him. But i want him back. And want to give this relationship another shot. But i know that's never going to happen. That's how relationships are. Time and destiny doesn't always give you a second chance.

He came from nowhere. Cute, chubby, fluffy under my car. He has the cutest brown eyes which didn't leave their puppiness even as he became a big scary dog. The magic is all in his eyes. And i just hope that his magic works on some other kinder family. He was pampered and he was a foodie. He loved eating people food. And never preferred his own dog food. He didn't like being treated like a dog and like i often joked he had an identity crisis. He could never see me cry. He was possessive of all of us. He was more human than all of us in the house. He would sense when things were really wrong. He would sense it when we were happy. He would sense when someone was unwell. He just knew it all. And he would show he cared in his own doggie way. I will remember spidy as the dog who loved to run around, who loved to dig, chase frogs, bark at cats, cared for a kitten, who loved being patted and petted.

He was my dog. And he has left a deep vacuum in me. A vacuum that is never going to be filled. And nothing is going to absolve me of the crime i committed. Of abandonment.