losing a pet: what no one tells you
By Sonya Minner
I got the message on a Tuesday morning.
It was the second day of classes of the fall semester and after going to my morning work shift, bright and early at 7:30, I had plans to go back to my apartment afterwards and nap. I didn’t have any classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays this semester, save for a Tuesday night class, and I was going to take advantage of the free time by catching up on some sleep.
My apartment was quiet when I got back and I wanted to use this to my advantage. I got comfortable in bed and set an alarm so I didn’t end up sleeping the day away, and then I closed my eyes.
I wasn’t expecting the text message from my mom. I figured it was just another text, asking me how classes were going. It was just another Tuesday in the string of Tuesdays that would make up the semester, after all. Except it wasn’t just another Tuesday, and it wasn’t just any old text from my mom letting me know how things back home were going.
“I’m so sorry to tell you like this, Sweetie, but we have to put Ollie down. We rushed him to the pet hospital in Pittsburgh this morning and he has a tumor on his spleen. He’s bleeding internally and there’s nothing they can do.”
They always tell you the first step of grieving is denial, and it’s true. I remember breaking the heavy silence that surrounded me with a loud and broken “NO!” I thought that if I denied it loud enough, the news would cease to be true. That wasn’t the case, though, because Ollie was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. It felt like the kind of pain I wasn’t sure I would be able to survive, the kind of pain no one could have prepared me for until it was right in front of me and I had no choice but to face it head on.
Oliver was a 10-year-old golden retriever we got when I was in fourth grade, and he was my best friend. I grew up with him. He was there for me every time I had to stay home from school with the flu and he always knew when I was upset. He wasn’t the most well-behaved dog in the world -- he had awful habits, like stealing socks, barking at the pool water at an eardrum-shattering-level, and chasing cars driving down the road like it was his job -- but he was still the best in my eyes.
After my mom told me there was nothing they could do, I cried for hours. I didn’t want to leave my bed and I didn’t want to think about going to my night class later that day. I just wanted to pull the covers over my head and cry until it stopped hurting.
I texted my best friend after I calmed down and told her. We had to put Ollie down. I wanted to say more, give an explanation or maybe just not talk about it at all and tell her how horrible I felt, but she was two hours away and I knew it wouldn’t do anything.
Her response came through almost instantly. "No! What happened? Are you OK?"
Was I OK? What did happen, exactly? Three days prior, I had been home, packing up my car with all of my belongings because I was getting ready to head back to school for the fall semester. Just three days prior, I’d told my mom that I’d be home in a week and that I would see her, my dad, and Ollie then. Seventy-two hours later and suddenly he was gone, and there was a dog-shaped hole in my heart that I didn’t think would ever be filled.
I cried for the rest of the night, and then my roommates came home and when I thought I had shed all of the tears I had in me, I told them what happened. Then, I cried even more.
My brother called me later that night to check in. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
“Horrible,” I said quietly, not wanting to speak too loudly for fear of my voice breaking and causing a fresh wave of tears all over again.
“I know. I almost lost it at work when Mom texted us.”
I made a noise in agreement because that was all I could manage.
“Call Mom, OK? She’s worried. She feels awful. Just call and check in with her.”
“I will,” I assured him.
“OK. I’ll talk to you later. I’m a call away if you need me.”
We hung up after that and I dialed my mom because I knew my brother was right. I needed to let her know I was OK, or at least that I would be.
The second my mom answered the phone, I burst into tears. We didn’t talk, just cried to each other over the phone while we were a hundred miles apart. She said she was sorry, over and over, and I cried harder because my best friend was gone and there was nothing I could do to change that fact.
The thing about death is that you never feel like you had enough time with the one you lost. On the phone with my mom, once we both calmed down, I said that I wished I could have just said good-bye, but then she said it wouldn’t have helped. She told me there was no “just”; I would have wanted another few minutes with him, and then another hour, then a day or a week or a month or a year. Nothing would have been enough. No time, except forever, would have been enough, and in the end, we would have still had the same result.
I cried for weeks afterwards and I spent a lot of nights wondering if the empty feeling in my heart would ever go away. It felt like it was just a part of me, like it was something I was just going to have to live with forever.
Eventually though, it got easier. I stopped feeling like I was going to cry every time I saw a picture of him, or ran across one of his toys tucked away in the corner of our house. It still ached, but it was manageable. It was no longer like a bullet wound to the chest, but rather just a paper-cut. It hurt like hell, but I would live.
No one can prepare you for how much it’s going to hurt, but in time, it gets easier.
No one could have ever prepared me for the pain I was going to feel when I received that text message on that Tuesday morning. No one could have told me that it was going to feel like I couldn’t breathe and that I would cry harder than I ever had, and even if the person did, I wouldn’t have believed him or her. For 10 years, Ollie was there every time I turned around. He was constantly tripping me up and getting under my feet, ripping up everything he could get his teeth on, and barking enough to drive me absolutely insane. Now that he’s gone, there isn’t much I wouldn’t do to hear him bark and shove his gross tennis ball at me one more time.
Sonya Minner is a junior English major with a concentration in creative writing. Learn more about her on her blog.
I got the message on a Tuesday morning.
It was the second day of classes of the fall semester and after going to my morning work shift, bright and early at 7:30, I had plans to go back to my apartment afterwards and nap. I didn’t have any classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays this semester, save for a Tuesday night class, and I was going to take advantage of the free time by catching up on some sleep.
My apartment was quiet when I got back and I wanted to use this to my advantage. I got comfortable in bed and set an alarm so I didn’t end up sleeping the day away, and then I closed my eyes.
I wasn’t expecting the text message from my mom. I figured it was just another text, asking me how classes were going. It was just another Tuesday in the string of Tuesdays that would make up the semester, after all. Except it wasn’t just another Tuesday, and it wasn’t just any old text from my mom letting me know how things back home were going.
“I’m so sorry to tell you like this, Sweetie, but we have to put Ollie down. We rushed him to the pet hospital in Pittsburgh this morning and he has a tumor on his spleen. He’s bleeding internally and there’s nothing they can do.”
They always tell you the first step of grieving is denial, and it’s true. I remember breaking the heavy silence that surrounded me with a loud and broken “NO!” I thought that if I denied it loud enough, the news would cease to be true. That wasn’t the case, though, because Ollie was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. It felt like the kind of pain I wasn’t sure I would be able to survive, the kind of pain no one could have prepared me for until it was right in front of me and I had no choice but to face it head on.
Oliver was a 10-year-old golden retriever we got when I was in fourth grade, and he was my best friend. I grew up with him. He was there for me every time I had to stay home from school with the flu and he always knew when I was upset. He wasn’t the most well-behaved dog in the world -- he had awful habits, like stealing socks, barking at the pool water at an eardrum-shattering-level, and chasing cars driving down the road like it was his job -- but he was still the best in my eyes.
After my mom told me there was nothing they could do, I cried for hours. I didn’t want to leave my bed and I didn’t want to think about going to my night class later that day. I just wanted to pull the covers over my head and cry until it stopped hurting.
I texted my best friend after I calmed down and told her. We had to put Ollie down. I wanted to say more, give an explanation or maybe just not talk about it at all and tell her how horrible I felt, but she was two hours away and I knew it wouldn’t do anything.
Her response came through almost instantly. "No! What happened? Are you OK?"
Was I OK? What did happen, exactly? Three days prior, I had been home, packing up my car with all of my belongings because I was getting ready to head back to school for the fall semester. Just three days prior, I’d told my mom that I’d be home in a week and that I would see her, my dad, and Ollie then. Seventy-two hours later and suddenly he was gone, and there was a dog-shaped hole in my heart that I didn’t think would ever be filled.
I cried for the rest of the night, and then my roommates came home and when I thought I had shed all of the tears I had in me, I told them what happened. Then, I cried even more.
My brother called me later that night to check in. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
“Horrible,” I said quietly, not wanting to speak too loudly for fear of my voice breaking and causing a fresh wave of tears all over again.
“I know. I almost lost it at work when Mom texted us.”
I made a noise in agreement because that was all I could manage.
“Call Mom, OK? She’s worried. She feels awful. Just call and check in with her.”
“I will,” I assured him.
“OK. I’ll talk to you later. I’m a call away if you need me.”
We hung up after that and I dialed my mom because I knew my brother was right. I needed to let her know I was OK, or at least that I would be.
The second my mom answered the phone, I burst into tears. We didn’t talk, just cried to each other over the phone while we were a hundred miles apart. She said she was sorry, over and over, and I cried harder because my best friend was gone and there was nothing I could do to change that fact.
The thing about death is that you never feel like you had enough time with the one you lost. On the phone with my mom, once we both calmed down, I said that I wished I could have just said good-bye, but then she said it wouldn’t have helped. She told me there was no “just”; I would have wanted another few minutes with him, and then another hour, then a day or a week or a month or a year. Nothing would have been enough. No time, except forever, would have been enough, and in the end, we would have still had the same result.
I cried for weeks afterwards and I spent a lot of nights wondering if the empty feeling in my heart would ever go away. It felt like it was just a part of me, like it was something I was just going to have to live with forever.
Eventually though, it got easier. I stopped feeling like I was going to cry every time I saw a picture of him, or ran across one of his toys tucked away in the corner of our house. It still ached, but it was manageable. It was no longer like a bullet wound to the chest, but rather just a paper-cut. It hurt like hell, but I would live.
No one can prepare you for how much it’s going to hurt, but in time, it gets easier.
No one could have ever prepared me for the pain I was going to feel when I received that text message on that Tuesday morning. No one could have told me that it was going to feel like I couldn’t breathe and that I would cry harder than I ever had, and even if the person did, I wouldn’t have believed him or her. For 10 years, Ollie was there every time I turned around. He was constantly tripping me up and getting under my feet, ripping up everything he could get his teeth on, and barking enough to drive me absolutely insane. Now that he’s gone, there isn’t much I wouldn’t do to hear him bark and shove his gross tennis ball at me one more time.
Sonya Minner is a junior English major with a concentration in creative writing. Learn more about her on her blog.