Our Last Ride

How could this happen? How can so much joy and fulfillment just end? Was I always destined to spend my last days alone, rotting, drowning in memories of laughter, love and exuberance? There has to be more than this. Doesn't there?

How I long to fly again! To feel the air rushing by, then slowing. To land and bound again and again, until the momentum is gone. To know you'll be chasing, ready to joyfully retrieve me and run, headlong, back to our human. Repeating the trip time and time again until, exhausted at last, you carry me to the car and we return home to rest.

I always knew we'd return to the “park” and I so enjoyed the unbridled joy in your leaps and wags at the very mention of that word. Each time, you'd rush to where you'd left me in our cozy bed and bound to the door. Every evening, you'd curl yourself protectively around me as you drifted off to sleep. We brought each other so much joy, and our human shared in it. Life was so good, and I'm not ready to believe it's over.

You searched so diligently that fateful afternoon, but the dampness all around had masked my scent and I was buried so deeply underneath the fallen leaves – oh, how it hurt to hear you called away. I heard the regret in his voice, but the overtone of resignation cut so deeply! The sound of our car door closing in the distance drove home the finality of the moment.

In the days that followed, I heard you often, for a while. Running, panting, coming so close, only to retrieve my replacement. I could feel your longing for me still, though you had accepted the newcomer as a consolation gift.

Gradually, I heard you less often, and then you were gone. And here I am, hopelessly lost and alone. Days come and the night replaces them. Another day comes, followed by another relentless night. I am left without purpose and no sense of how long, only the pain and despair of loss. Though I am actually the one lost.

I don't understand the nuances of such things. I only know I miss you and our human, too, although I confess to feeling some resentment toward him. It seems unjust that I could be so easily dismissed. Wasn't I a companion, too?

I hear you now! There's less vigor in your step, but it's you, and you're so close! Snuffling. Fervently, faithfully searching. But our human is here, too, insisting it's time to go. I hear the surprise in his voice as you proudly walk out with me.

I feel the raggedness of your breath during the slow walk to the car. I hear the soft whine as he lifts you into the vehicle. His quiet sob. I don't know how, but I know this is our last ride.

But we'll go there together. And that's all that matters.