Losing My Best Friend
A Tribute
I wrote this piece two years ago today when my dog passed away.
We got you for my eighth birthday. Days later as I ran down the hallway you gleefully mirrored my motions. That was the first game we ever played. We named you “Boo.” You were too small for the world around you, so when we took you out to the bus stop on those brisk March mornings it was inside of a fuzzy hat. When bus 529 arrived at the corner, my bus driver, Tom, would feed you a treat — and It wasn’t long until you expected every bus that drove past to give you snacks.
The world was a very different place back then. You were there when Bush got re-elected, but you’d jump at my feet each day as I’d come home to tell my parents about kickball games and subtraction lessons. You were there when I graduated from elementary school and you were there when I graduated from middle school.
You were there when I got my concussion.
You were there when I asked out my first girlfriend and you were waiting at home for me after I kissed her for the first time.
You were there for my first heartbreak and you were there for my second. And my third and fourth.
You loved the snow. You would prance gleefully through snow taller than you, disappearing in between each leap and bound. You would…
