Why I Can Never Get Over The Loss Of My Dog

After all this time, I still remember the day I lost you. The memory is fresh, a wound that refuses to heal. I am at peace with this. I do not want it to. I recall the stringent smell of the white room, barren aside from the sterile examination table and a few chairs. 

This is where you died, my boy.

 Not in my arms but on this cold slab.

I tried my best to be there for you, in hindsight my job was not worth it. You should know nothing would have been worth it. I should have left, should have ran from the building as fast as I could when he called. I trusted him, though, as I should have. It was not his fault. No one could know it would happen so quickly, that your tiny body could not withstand the trauma it endured. I had time. You would live. This is what they said. 

"He's gone." 

When I picked up the phone to hear the news about your progress, these were the words I was not prepared for. I couldn't have prepared for them. I screamed then, turning heads across the store. A friend came to me and I collapsed on her shoulder. I sobbed with such force I forgot how to breathe. 

After all this time, I still see your face as it was then. It is the final snapshot I have of you. They say in death it appears that you are sleeping.

Wake up, my love. Please, God, wake up.

I marveled at how small you seemed, swaddled in a blanket like the innocent babe you were. My child. My son.

They took you from me then, after a few moments of saying goodbye. My mother held me, rocked me as she fought her own grief. She had loved you as much as I had. I am grateful she was there to comfort you in your final moments, but behind the gratitude lied jealousy.

It should have been me. Me. Your mother, your soul mate.

After all this time, I still cannot bare to look at your remains. The hospital sent a sympathetic card along with your ashes and pawprints. I took one look at the imprints and the smell of your paws came back to me all at once. Corn chips. How I loved to kiss them. Forgive me.

Some day, I will gain the courage to view them again. I will be able to withstand the rush of memories: the joy, the smell. Oh God, that smell. For now the pain is too great. Though you knew contentment in the end, I cannot help but imagine your terror.

In my mind I hear you crying for me, screaming, wondering where I could be and why I did not come for you. I am sorry, sweet boy. I did not know you would not be there to greet me at the end of the day.

I wonder now how often I left you to live life, how you trusted me to return for you again and again until the day I did not. The day you needed me most. The day I failed as your protector, what I swore to be from the day you became mine. They gave you to me, placed you in my arms. You lied your head on my chest and let out a sigh. 

When I took you to the store after to buy supplies, a woman approached me. This complete stranger stopped me and told me, "He trusts you. The way he looks at you. He trusts you." 

Do you remember, my love? 

You trusted me. Where was I? 

 If only I could go back. You would never be alone. Never.

After all this time, I still ask God why he didn't allow me to die in your stead. What makes me worthy of life over a perfect spirit? The picture of purity? Those days were dark, sweet boy. I turned to drink and pills, unable to sleep without you. Live or die, it did not matter to me. We would have been together again. This is not such a bad thing.

I have another friend now. He needs me now as you once did. I need him, too. He is unlike you in every way, but I have learned to love him. He is separate and special. I tell him about you each day. I call him your brother.

I say, "you would have loved him, Barney."

Then I search his wide eyes for any sign of understanding of my pain, the love for you that does not die. The tears that even now as I write refuse to fall. He does not leave my side if he can help it. I think he knows.

After all this time, how could he not?