just me & my dog and an impossible view
on grieving my childhood dog
they don’t tell you how quiet it is. when you’re home alone, the absence of the tip-tap of paws on the hardwood floors is so jarring. clumps of fur keep lingering on your clothes even though the house has been vacuumed and dusted over and over again in the last few weeks. it almost feels surreal, like you’re living in this alternate reality where almost everything is normal, but something is missing, and you feel it so deeply in your heart.
i’ve been trying to write this for exactly a month now, since my dog, max, passed away. every time i’ve sat down and thought about what i’d like to say about him, i’ve been struck with yet another wave of sadness. i’ve never really experienced loss or grief like this before; my family’s first dog, duke, passed away when i was just a few months old and i’m fortunate that most of my relatives are still alive, so i've been very blindly wandering through this time. i had a feeling that this was coming; he was old, just days away from his 13th birthday, and his health had been declining rapidly, but part of me was naive enough to believe that we still had much more time.
we got him as an 8-week-old puppy when i was 10, and he was with my family for more than half my life. to say i can’t remember a time without him would be a lie, but he had such a joyful, kind presence that the last 12 years were so much brighter and more vivid because of him.
in the 2 weeks leading up to max’s passing, i started having an unexplainable, funny feeling. i went out to lunch with my mom and told her about a nightmare i had the night before, about max dying and his ghost appearing as a benevolent spirit. he was just lurking around my house and making sure i knew he was there and i was so deeply unsettled when i woke up, but a part of me knew that my brain was trying to prepare me for what was coming. i remember one night when i knew max was sick and i took a shower and shuffled my playlist of my favorite songs and i kid you not it played “i bet on losing dogs”, “me and my dog”, and “dog days are over” back to back.
part of me feels like i should have done more to prepare myself. it’s the cycle of life, he was old, his health wasn’t the greatest, etc., but in reality, there’s no way to properly prepare yourself for the deep feeling of finality, and constant wish for more time. i went to dc and western maryland for a weekend cabin trip with my boyfriend and friends, and as soon as my dad picked me up from the train station on tuesday afternoon, he told me max wasn’t eating, something wasn’t right, and he was going to the vet the upcoming weekend. max passed away thursday morning. i was at work in the city all day on wednesday, and i still feel so sad that i barely had any time to say goodbye. and when i did get to say goodbye, i felt physical pain in my entire body.
grief is so strange. i once heard it described as hitting you in waves, and mine feels like some crazy mega-tsunami. it’s the first impact hitting so aggressively, smaller waves coming in, flooding that lasts for god knows how long, stepping back and examining the destruction left in its wake, and finally, the process of rebuilding, but remembering what was there before. i still feel pain every time i look at the clock and it's 5 pm and my brain instictively tells me that i need to feed max, or i wake up and walk downstairs expecting to see him curled up in his favorite sunny spot. it’s been exactly a month and all i’ve learned is that grief is so far from linear, some days i feel good and happy, and then others i’m a mess. all i know is that when i’m thinking about him all the time, i hope he’s happier and at peace.
even though for the first few days i couldn’t even look at a photo of max without feeling such intense heartbreak and a profound loss, i’m at a point now where remembering some of my favorite memories of him and with him have been such a special way to get through this, and i wanted to share them here:
max’s favorite song was “calling all the monsters” by china anne mcclain. my mom used to play it from her ipod max would jump up and wait for julia or me to chase him around.
he loved soft toys, especially stuffed animals that squeaked, but since we first brought him home he would tear them apart in 2 seconds to find the squeaky part, rip it out, and then lay on his bed with the remains of the soft toy. i kept one of them, a blue penguin.
whenever someone would drive up our driveway, max would be so excited, and i know his little dog brain was telling him that someone was there just to play with him. he would wait for my dad to come home from work every day and stand with his head on the window sill, it was the perfect height for him to stand and stare.
max wasn’t allowed on the couches when we first got him, but he decided that he was, so we had to make it so the couch cushions were standing up so he couldn't jump on, but we would always find him on the couch somehow. he was allowed on the couches after that. (until we got new ones)
he loved us so much. he always wanted to be exactly where we all were, all the time. he would lay under the dinner table, curl up next to the chair i was reading a book on, lurk on the staircase landing, sit on the front porch, try to throw himself in the pool with us, and occasionally, sit in the back of the car, drooling all over himself and julia and me, but having the time of his life because he was with us.
losing max feels like i’ve lost part of myself, because of how deeply he was ingrained into my life. i know in the future there will be other dogs, but i know that max left such a beautiful impression in my life that can never be replicated, and i wouldn’t want it to be. he was one of a kind, the best boy in the world, and the happiest, most lovable dog i’ve ever met. i wish more than anything for 10 more minutes with him and it pains me that i’ll never get that, but i have almost 13 years of memories and love, and right now, that’s enough.
