Is it normal to miss the dogs that i knew? (more info inside)

When I was a wee baby, My grandparents had two dogs, Arney, and Poppy. Both were rescue dogs, they had a strong mistrust of people. Everyone except me.
Arney was viciously beaten on a daily basis by his previous owner.
Poppy was found tied to a lamp post and beaten half to death by chains by her previous owners.

As I was growing up, everyone in my family feared for my safety with them. The dogs never left my side, even for a moment, they would sit at my bed, by my pram, by my side, all day everyday, simply going to the toilet is all they did. You might be wondering why I would care about my Grandparents dogs, well I happened to stay at my Grandparents 5 nights a week for the first 12 years of my life. My mum was a nurse, my dad was gone, so, where else could I go?

At the time, they meant everything to me, more than my mum and my grandparents, who I met nearly everyday for a short while. I had no friends, they were the only things I could relate to, play with, even talk to. All my life, I have felt the bitterness of Loneliness, although now become accustomed to it. Back then, these dogs where everything.

However it all changed one fateful day, when a Gypsy boy met me at a local reserve (like a wooded national park where people walk their dogs) he decided to try to bully me, a fateful mistake, on his part. I was a horrible child, all I knew where dogs, any humans where no friend of mine, that was my mindset, my dogs where my only friends. He made fun of my dogs, so I beat hit him and made him cry. His father was none to happy. So he pushed me around, my dog "poppy" was on her walk with me and my gran, my grandad was at work with Arney, my gran was getting Ice Cream at the time. The man started trying to beat me to make me apologize slapping my head, pushing me around, so Poppy bit him, although she was only a little dog she drew blood. He decided to beat her until she stopped moving, although not dead. Of course, it was only me, Poppy and the man and his family. When people came around the corner, the man proclaimed the dog bit him unprovoked, and tried to attack his son. I didn't have the best understanding of events. I didn't think much of it at the time. What wasn't made clear to me at the time, is that Poppy had to be put down.

I came to my grans one day, to find only Arney waiting for me. I was told poppy was dead, plain and simple. I cried for four hours straight that day, and looked everywhere in disbelief she died. "How could such a kind dog die?" I asked myself this constantly for hours.
I never said a word for the next 2 weeks, after that day. After that dog had went through so much, she died, for doing the right thing.

3 weeks after her death, Arney died in my arms of a tumor in his brain.
I cried again, less than last time, not because I didn't spend as much time with him. But because I was used to death.

This happened when I was aged 5. for the next year, I spent my days in utter loneliness. The house was quiet. Until my Grandfather became a father figure, and raised me as his own and made me into the person I am today, he is and always will be, one of the most important people in the history of my life.

After this point I never shed a tear in my entire life, until I wrote this. I had rejected it all, never trying to remember. But now I want to know, is getting upset over a dog normal, or is trying to forget them?