Losing a Pet Is Never Easy, Especially At 15/16
The first time I experienced grief, I was around 15/16 years old, still in high school. He was my first dog, a dog I had since childhood and I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening that day. I grew up in a family where my dad always had dogs and a love for animals in general, whereas my mom was indifferent towards them. I guess I took after my dad in that respect, lol.
That day I still remember, I guess some things stay with you long after the event takes place, the memory remains.
My dad came picked me up, my sister was coming over (she no longer lived at the house), and my mom was coming home from work early. Nothing made sense that day. Our dog had remained at the vet because he had these golf ball sized tumors all over his body. I begged my dad to take our dog to the vet earlier, but being that he grew up with animals, he refused. Not because he didn’t care, but because no amount of money would save our beloved animal, a lesson I would again learn later on in life in my 30s. My dad knew what the outcome would be and it didn’t matter whether we had the money for surgery, the cancer was in his bones and as long as our family dog was not in pain, he would be okay.
That afternoon we went to the vet hospital, I still remember the color of the hospital, the strip mall it was located in, and the hospital smell. I still remember the way the vet earlier let my dad and I go into the back where they had our dog and he was hooked up to IVs. My dad asked the vet what was going on. The vet gently explained (because I was in the room I surmise) that he was hooked up to morphine and they weren’t sure that the cancer was in his bones. At the time there was only one way to guarantee that… They could stick a long needle into his bone and see if it goes in softly, if yes, then it’s bone cancer, if not, then it wouldn’t be in his bones yet. The vet also stated that even with morphine, the dog would still be in pain and that’s when my dad said no.
At that moment I still didn’t entirely understand. This was the first time I experienced something like this.
Then the time came to say goodbye… It went quick, almost too quick. The vet didn’t explain how quick our family dog would go, nor did they explain what euthanasia would look like. All I knew was one moment his eyes were still full of life and the next moment they were blank… It was the most painful experience at that moment in time.
I struggled. That same year I did a project on death, and that’s when I found out one of my high school teachers had dogs and put one down. She was the only person outside of my immediate family I felt I could tell how I was feeling without judgment.
No matter the loss, it always hurts. No matter how much time or how little, it never gets easier. I remember the pain, the hurt, the confusion of it all. I remember the stillness of the house, the quiet where there used to be barking and the clean floors where fur used to accumulate.
The point is that grief isn’t linear and there’s no timeline. What works for someone doesn’t always work for another. All these years later, I still remember it all.
And maybe that’s the point of grief, it’s not something we move through at the same pace but something that we learn to carry. There are memories that stay beneath the surface similar to that of the ocean, sometimes it’s calm, sometimes it’s impossible to navigate, and sometimes brought back to the surface like the shore by something as simple as the smell, photograph, emptiness in the house where something once was, or the memory of a dog who once jumped up on the bed and curled at your feet facing the door to protect you from the outside.
Maybe we need those anchors, the people, the memories, the stories and little pieces of what once was that keep us from drifting too far when the waves of life get rough.
That’s what I hope for you to find in The Quiet Mess. A place for things we don’t always know how to say out loud. Grief, loss, mental health, life, school, the ups and downs, achievements, success, failures, growth, and all of the places in between. The things that feel too messy and the quiet… a place where you can ask if someone else understands.
Life isn’t always neat. Sometimes we are just trying to stay afloat with all that life throws at us. We need that anchor sometimes to keep us grounded, and sometimes we need to let the waves of life carry us to new places.