The morning you left was a perfect, cool summer morning, soft sunlight filtering through the neighbors’ tall pine trees. I wore my favorite brown cardigan that was covered in your hair as I moved from room to room pacing, anticipating the arrival of the person who would come to take you away from me. You lifted your head and watched. You were so tired. The seizures were so hard on your little body. I hated that I made that phone call but I knew it was the most loving thing I could do for you. I didn’t want you to hurt anymore. I didn’t want you to hurt ever.
When they came I laid beside you on the living room floor and cradled your head in my arms, face to face so our noses could touch. I wanted to memorize every last little spot, every single eyelash, the curve of your perfect little nose, your little teeth. I don’t have children so I love you like you were my child. I whispered over and over “You made mama happy every single day. You made mama happy EVERY single day.”
I said it over and over and over until your little heart stopped beating.
* * *
I wasn’t ready for a world without you in it. I had taken that week off of work to take care of you, and instead I used it to freefall into a deep black pit. I laid in my bed staring at the blurry ceiling and instinctively reached for you next to me only to find cold empty sheets. I screamed. Forgetting and remembering, forgetting and remembering.
The days and nights smeared together. Two thousand one hundred and twelve days we had each other. I wanted thousands more. You deserved thousands more. Eventually the initial sharp stab wound gave way to the infection of a quiet despair. I didn’t eat solid food for weeks, my clothes hung from my body like a shroud. Desperate for any kind of relief I ordered all the pet loss grief self help books I could find. It feels so silly to call you my “pet” when you were the glowing golden heart around which my household pivoted. You and your rituals, your new games you would make up and teach us the rules for. It became so quiet without you. The world lost all its color. Eating was repulsive. Music was repulsive. I found solace in nothing.
A little over a week after, I was notified I could come pick up your remains. I left work at lunch and didn’t plan on coming back. I sat down at the dining room table and pulled a beautiful little carved wooden box from the aubergine paper bag. It was so tiny, so light. Inside was all that was left of you. I climbed down onto the floor and curled into a ball around it. It was really real now. You weren’t going to come tippy-tapping through the kitchen door ever again. I wasn’t going to be able to take a picture of you sleeping in some bizarre position ever again. I wasn’t going to sit in a lawn chair and watch you follow a bumblebee from flower to flower, your curious little mind wondering what WAS this fuzzy little guy? Was it a treat?? You were just gone.
* * *
On my stronger days I managed to do the mundane but difficult work of things like cleaning out and storing away your big glass food jar. I swirled the soapy water around inside, wiping away the remnants of the expensive prescription food that helped keep you alive for a little while longer. I gently peeled the nametag off and stuck it on the pretty box I got to store your artifacts. It has yellow flowers on it, because whenever I see little yellow flowers I think of you. So sweet, small, and happy. I swept up little tufts of your hair from under the chairs and in corners, but I couldn’t throw them away. I buried them in the potted plants. There will come a day where I sweep up your last hair, and I want to know there’s still pieces of you in the house somewhere.
I printed over 200 pictures of you, and put them in chronological order in a pink photo album, so I can look through and relive our time together whenever I need to. The last picture is of you in our blue wagon, on our last walk together, five days before you left. You were smiling up at me, and you looked so peaceful and happy to just be out with mama on a breezy summer evening. I used to carry you upstairs to bed with me, your soft sleepy body, and I still do. Every night I turn off the living room lamp and I pick you up in your little wooden box with the brass nameplate I had engraved with your proper name “Winifred”, and I carry you up where you spend the night on my nightstand, right next to me, all night.
The dog I originally didn’t want wound up being the dog I would die for. I would’ve died for you, Winnie. I once ripped my own thumbnail off saving you from being electrocuted. One of the thoughts that keeps circling around in my head is that if making deals with the universe were real I would have immediately and happily traded ten years of my own life to give to you, so you could’ve had a normal lifespan and we could’ve slowly turned into little old ladies together, side by side.
I can’t believe we were so lucky to find each other. Papa found you and brought us together. In my life there will be Before You and After You. You were the love of my life, Winnie. I will remember and love you many, many times longer than the time we had together. We had 5 years, 9 months, and 12 days but I will love you until the sun burns out and time ceases to exist.
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