the desire to be dissolved

I used to really love the buildup to Halloween — the mild annoyance of picking up leaves from the neighbors’ trees, bundling up in thin layers to meet the light Southern California breeze, the anticipation of what the pop culture zeitgeist will manifest in the year’s costumes and holiday displays. For me, what is so special about Halloween is liminality: the enchantment of temporality, a seasonal threshold that connects disparate realities. Winter is born through summer’s death and darkness becomes the rule; Halloween is the season of new beginnings and old memories.

We typically have our ofrenda up by the beginning of October, even though it’s tradition to wait until the end of the month to put it up. Everyone has different customs: you should only put up photographs and mementos of souls that have passed away more than three months ago; principal loved ones are put up higher on the ofrenda, like beloved grandparents or parents, moving down to the most recent; each day, starting from the 27th, is used to observe and remember different passings. I’ve always put it up earlier because I like to tell myself that ancestors deserve to find their way home earlier, that they should have an early, welcoming surprise — we miss you very much, please stay with us.

I always end up putting a mixture of multiple individuals and pets’ photographs on every level. To me, it feels unjust to ‘rank’ our family’s losses. My grandmother died when I was a young girl and her loss shaped my life and upbringing, the relationship I have with my cultural background and sense of being in the world, but it also transformed my entire family. But, like losing my father-in-law, I know how deeply wounding Ozilla’s absence is on our family. I tell everyone it’s been the equivalent of losing my soulmate: my life companion who was more than simply ‘a dog,’ but a creature who became my confidante, my trusted other half who loved me in all the ways I needed.

The waves of sadness are continuous and steady. I can always rely upon knowing that, at any given moment, I can and will burst into tears. Working from home has its pleasures, but the hardest part is sitting at my desk, pouring over books, only to never have a paw delicately graze my thigh — give me love, take me outside, take a break to give me love. It’s the loss of time as I sit at my desk and work through lunch, feeling ashamed that I didn’t simply forget to take care of myself, but that our other three children patiently napped, waiting for me to regard them too. It’s the perpetual sadness that hangs over me when I clean, picking up clumps of dog hair and dust, washing only three bowls instead of four, wiping four less paws after a rainy morning, sitting at the dining table and not sensing the wide-eyed stare of our girl.

I have felt great, tremendous, and overwhelming sadness that feels like it can suffocate. But the greatest sadness that I now know is that she’s been gone for so long that I almost forget that she was once a dominant feature in my everyday life. I’ve learned to sleep on my side, gathering the leftover blanket that would’ve been her cavity so I can fall asleep clinging to it. I avoid working at my work desk many days because it’s too painful to sit there and work nonstop for eight hours. I hate the moment I become paralyzed with dread at the realization that I have six eyes watching me eat a snack over the kitchen counter, missing the little raised paw to ‘sit like a lady’ that would always undoubtedly earn the troupe all treats. What I miss above all are the daily reminders of her disruptiveness, snores that became a lullaby (but a nightmare for my husband). Her grunts that told us that she was there, maneuvering through the home and into our spaces. Her buildup barks that were a rally for our other three to create a canine tune.

The sadness I have felt the last three months is the overwhelming dread that she will be our first baby on the ofrenda. I have childhood pets who have earned their place on the altar, family dogs who helped raise me as much as I did a terrible job to raise them. But Ozilla’s presence will sting in a different way because you’re never prepared for the finality that occurs as you assemble the offerings.

Her death was unexpected and tragic, and I can go longer and longer each day without thinking of our final moments. I’ve gotten quite good at feigning forgiveness for those who were there in her final moments and I do my best to remind myself that it just happened to be us that afternoon, naturally. It could have been anyone else but it was Ozilla that day.

This is another first for me.

They say you move forward but what if there is no ‘forward’? It feels simply like moving through. Moving with. Alongside. I wish I had a better grieving process but I don’t. I just miss her terribly and feel like I’m forever living with the in-between.

Twelve years just wasn’t enough. But what time is?