#66 Lyka
Today, I found an old photo from 2013 of Lyka's daughter.
I stared at that little dog and suddenly thought of Lyka again.
I don't have a photo of Lyka. There were no smartphones back then, and somehow, none of the old photographs I have managed to survive. I wish I had even just one picture of her—something I could look at whenever I miss her. Something that would let me say, “Yes. This was Lyka. This was my dog.”
But I remember her.
Lyka was my playmate when I was younger. She wasn't just a dog that happened to belong to our family. She was part of my childhood. I remember having her around, being able to play with her, and simply having that little companion who existed in my world when I was a kid.
She eventually died after being bitten by a snake.
Even now, that feels like such a sad way for her story to end. I wish I could have protected her. I wish there had been more we could have done. But I was young, and some things were simply beyond my control.
Years later, I took a photo of her daughter without realizing that one day I would look at it and think of Lyka.
Her daughter looked so much like her somehow.
The same kind of face. The same familiar scruffy little-dog feeling. Looking at that old photograph feels almost like finding a tiny piece of Lyka that I didn't know I still had.
It's funny how memory works. I don't have a photograph of the dog I miss most, yet I can still remember her name after all these years.
Lyka.
Maybe that's enough proof that she mattered.
I wish I had a picture of you, Lyka. I really do.
But if I don't, then I'll keep remembering you the way I can—through the stories, through the little memories from childhood, and now, strangely enough, through your daughter in an old photograph from 2013.
You were one of my first little friends.
And I haven't forgotten you.