To Pippin

About a month ago, as I packed my things to return to Huntingdon after a long Christmas break, I ran across a Mead notebook-turned journal that I kept in my freshman year of high school. The first thing I'd written in this notebook was a list of silly questions that I'd found in a magazine. Among the questions I answered was, "What would you do if there were ten more hours in every day?" and my answer was this: "I'd probably go crazy. The days are long enough as it is. And when you really can't wait for a certain day to come, you don't want any extra ten hours." Needless to say, now that six years have passed, I no longer feel that way. Sometimes I think that I could be a much more useful and self-actualized human being with a mere half hour attached to the end of each day. But of course, that's not the way it works.
Time marches on faster all the time, and last week, time marched away with Pippin, our family's beloved dachshund. Pippin was far more like a family member than the family pet; we brought him home when I was seven years old, forever ending my fear of dogs and providing me with one of my best childhood friends. Pippin provided us with thirteen years of laughter and memories. I'll never forget the first time he pranced up the stairs in our old house and realized, to his dismay, that he had no idea how to come down again; I'll always remember how much he loved turning over garbage cans in search of tissues, and how sprinkling cayenne pepper in them only caused him to turn them over more often (and of course, to drink more water afterward). I'll always laugh when I think of the time he ran full-speed across our hardwood floor, slipping and sliding all the way, and noticed just a few seconds too late that the door he was running toward was closed.
At a basic level, it seems silly to have gotten so emotional about the passing of an animal, but in actuality, I think it would be inappropriate if I didn't. Pippin was a constant companion for my family and me for over half of my life to this point, and my memories with him outnumber those without him. I'll think of him every time I see a red dog collar, a chewed-up toy, or a patch of warm sunshine lighting up the floor. And I'll know that somewhere in dog heaven, there's a little black dachshund chewing tissues to his heart's content...