#7 Losing a Dog (child)

It’s strange how your dog (child) dying makes you want to move away. And makes you believe in heaven.  

She’s gone. Her bed’s gone. Her bowl’s gone. Her food and her medication. Her smell. Gone in the bin or in her grave or out the door. 

The one you walked and fed and held in bed, hers and yours. Little mundane chores of love, that you once begrudged. Complained about. The one you didn’t go on long holidays for. The one who’s smell you equated to home, no matter how objectively bad. The one who loved you so wholly. The one who you loved that way too, right back. The one who’s body touched yours more than almost anyone else, her back against you in bed, her nose on your forehead.  

The one who’s hair you cursed and now you wish it was everywhere, on everything. Like glitter, you hope you’ll never stop finding it. The one you hope to remember every single detail about, but you know what the passing of time does. The one who hated the outdoors, where she never liked to be for more than a minute or two. Now she’s there forever in the mud and the rain, or in heaven on a golden couch. You believe in heaven now, remember?
The one that made a house a home with her snoring and her click clacking and her endless lounging around.

Now it’s just a place she’s not. 

The quiet labour of loving a dog (child). 

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On Monday our beautiful Sweet Bean died, and I’ve been so sad I haven’t been able to do anything but cry and look at the wispy locks of hair we kept from her egg-shaped head. Objectively, I realise this probably makes me sound kind of unhinged. Like a spinsterish cat lady who projected an insane level of humanity onto an animal. But it is what it is.

So that’s it from me, late, incoherent and short. I promise I’ll be much more interesting next week.

Lots of love,

Belle