My dog Lucy died this week.
I’ve had her since I was 7 years old. I lost my grandparents when I was tiny, but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced death with any sort of real emotion.
Lucy was a beagle that couldn’t bark. Her vocal cords were removed because the city said her bark was too loud. People would make fun of her because she would try as hard as she could to bark, and sometimes ended up making noise out of the other end.
Lucy was a tank. She was a man’s kind of dog. An average beagle weighs rougly 25 pounds. At her heaviest, Lucy weighed in at 52. She holds the current world record for cinnamon roll consumption in a single sitting, with an astonishing 27 rolls digested in the span of six minutes. When we used to leave her outside while at school, she ate through our screen door. Seven times. Theyt were made of steel. She once ate rat poison. She kind of enjoyed it. People used to make fun of her weight, and would put potato chips on her back because she couldn’t reach them or shake them off.
The first day Lucy came into our house, she fell asleep in my lap. When I was sick and stayed home from school, she laid in bed with me and watched cartoons. She loved getting her back scratched, and she loved to lay next to you and take a nap for hours.
I only remember having one nightmare as a kid. A family would come and take my dog away from me, and I’d see Lucy looking out of the back of a station wagon at me. I used to wake up crying.
Sometimes I still have that dream. The only difference is I don’t get to wake up and scratch her back.
So this is what mourning is like.
