We Always Loved You

I got her when I was ten. I lost her by twenty-three. She’s a part of my growing up, maybe even the biggest one. Anyone who’s been through what I have will understand. Anyone that hasn’t most likely can’t. But that’s okay. I don’t judge. When it happens, it happens. Pain or freedom. That’s the choice. Your decision. Not hers, but yours. Freedom for her, pain for you, and vice versa. There is nothing you can do when you’ve done all you can. You had the time you had together. You always knew it wouldn’t be forever. Sometimes, I function. Other times, I break. It’s getting better though, or easier at least. At times, it feels difficult to express what I feel. If I do I think that I will lose myself, isn’t that scary?

She had a good life. She had a great life. No suffering and full of love. She was pure love walking around, always there, always happy. We all have to go, at some point. That time was her time. I didn’t spend her last year with her. I spent it wasting my time. Wasting it. Will she ever come back? No. Never. And that hurts. I never knew what it felt like until now. "If I could only have one more day." How many times have we not heard that? I know now what they mean.

When she went, it was as if my entire sense of what reality was got totally blown away. It felt as if it wasn’t real. It’s easy to fall into denial. I almost did a few times. Going deep into the memory of her presence, it feels good again, as if she was there. But she’s not, I know. But I can pretend, can’t I? For a moment. I have never experienced such pain as when she got the final needle. Hugging her with a sense of completely losing control of myself. And letting it happen. Allowing. I think there’s a lot to allowing what is. Resisting it is pointless. It will happen anyway. And it did. That day — I will remember it for the rest of my life. Maybe I will ask myself why I didn’t take more pictures, give her more hugs, more kisses. But in the end, I did what I could. We all did. She was in pain, and there was nothing we could do after having tried everything.

I was in shock. I think we all were. It was such a shift in our realities, seeing her there, lifeless. Dead. Just a body now, and in a few days not even that. There was still an odor, though. Her smell. How I always loved it. How free she always saw herself, and how she loved being outside. She really was my best friend. There was the sound she made when we got home, even if we were just gone a little bit. She was love in its purest form, a beautiful, beautiful creature.

It’s over now. I know. Do I wish it wasn’t? Part of me, yes. But what’s the point of wishing yourself away from what’s real? It happened and we got through it or we are getting through it. Every day. It gets easier, or maybe we just get more used to it, if there is a difference. But in the end, it’s okay. Things come to be and things end. It’s the way things are. I’m sad she’s gone, and I do miss her. But I also had her, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I couldn’t have asked for anything better because there wouldn’t have been any.