This is from a while ago, but I figured if I’m going to start blogging again I should pick up where I left off…
This is going to be a sad, sappy one.
Our little girl, Beatrice, passed away at home Thursday (July 20, 2019) morning. She was 16 years old, which is a good old age for a pug, but I still wasn’t ready for it. But I was never going to be ready for it. She started getting sick Monday night, Wednesday we took her to the vet, and then Thursday she was gone. She was kind enough to make that final decision for us, because as gutted as I feel right now I’d have to be peeled off the floor if I had to make that call.
We didn’t mean to find her. We were at the Printer’s Row Book Fair, and when I started thumbing through some comic books Jamie wandered off. She came back a few minutes later and said there’s somebody you have to meet. She took me into a pet grooming place that was hosting an adoption event, a woman put this little dog into my arms, and she fell asleep with a sigh. And I said now what do we do? The woman brought her for a home visit the next day, and then that was it. We had a dog. I was unemployed at the time, so I was home with her a lot. Beatrice bonded to me almost instantly, and me to her. We were probably unhealthily obsessed with each other, but I don’t care, she was my favorite little thing in the world and I feel like a part of me is missing. I’m having phantom dog syndrome.
I once jokingly posted on Facebook that I loved my dog more than 90% of my Facebook friends. The truth is that number was probably skewed in your favor. The truth is the entire goal of my day was to get everything done so I could get home to my dog, who up until a few days ago would come running to greet me at the door, often screaming in what I always assumed was delight, and then sit on my couch with my dog in my lap for the evening. The couch kind of sucks now. I love these other two dogs, but they’re Jamie’s dogs. Bea was mine.
As much as I cried doing it (okay, sobbed) it was nice scrolling back through all these pictures today. I recently read this Kierkegaard quote:
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
I know he didn’t mean that I got to see my little pug age backwards while searching through Google photos, but that kept coming to mind while I was doing it. And now I have to find a way to move forward without my dog.
Every time my dog sneezed I said bless you, because if I do get into heaven (big if) my dog had better be there waiting for me or I’ll start screaming at St. Peter like the waspiest woman in Starbucks who thinks she tastes dairy in her soy latte. Let me speak to your manager. Fine, your son of manager.
It goes without saying that however weepy I feel now I wouldn’t change a thing. Great love equals great loss, right? Most people say that their greatest regrets involve not appreciating what they have when they have it. I’m sure I’m guilty of that, too. But not with Bea. I truly appreciated her everyday. Whenever I tried doing one of those gratitude lists my dog was always top of the list. And if I start feeling all Oprah-ish in the near future she will still be there. No regrets.
I’m sure someday I’ll be able to think of Bea without falling to pieces, but today’s not that day. Today I get to wallow. And this sad stormcloud in my chest will probably remain there for a good long while. But that’s fine. Missing her is the next best thing to being with her, right?
So goodbye, Bebe. You were a good dog. You were the best dog. I’ll never stop missing you.
