The day my grandparents' dog died, a part of me died too. I lost the only pet I’d ever known. The dog I spent every day of summer with. The dog that was my safe space.

When we got the call, everything stopped. Tick tock… Tick tock. Even though the clock continued to move, it felt like time didn’t I was stuck in a single moment in time. A moment where everything went silent, pitch black, and the world was at a standstill. 

I sat in my room alone taking in the silence, trying to befriend it, as tears began to cloud my sight. These tears raced down my cheeks until they entered the corner of my mouth. The saltiness of my own tears only reinforced the bitter feeling I already possessed.

I tried to hold it all in. But I broke. 

And the silence broke with me.

How can losing a dog that wasn’t even mine hurt so bad?

As I bawled harder and harder, my sobs continue to disrupt the silence. I wept for three days straight. I heaved and coughed until I couldn’t anymore; until all I was left with was silence, which was what I was scared of. Because once you stop crying, there is no other sound to comfort you. Because then all you’re left with are your thoughts. The thoughts that fly through your head at a million miles an hour. The thoughts that consume you and never stop coming. Why’d he have to leave so soon? Why Charlie? Why me? And the worst part about these thoughts is that they’re unanswerable questions. I will never know why Charlie had to die. I will never know why it happened when it did. I will never know why this happened to me. 

Eventually, I came to terms with it. The tears slowed to a stop, as well as the heaving and coughing. Once I accepted what had happened, I tried to remember all the good times I had with Charlie. And after spending every summer for eight years at my grandparents’ house with their dog, I had a lot. I remembered all the walks we used to take him on. I would get so excited when my grandpa would let me hold the leash because that meant I was a big girl. He was a good dog, usually. Except when a squirrel would scurry up the big oak planted in the front of my grandparents’ lawn; then he would sprint full force at the tree yanking the leash out of my hand. He never got the squirrel, of course, but it was fun watching him try. I remembered the hose, sprinkler, and mini blow-up pool. On the hottest days of the summer, my cousin, brother, and I would get the blow-up pool and sprinkler out of my grandparents’ garage, drag the hose from the side of the house to our little setup, and prepare for our homemade beach day.  As we attempted to get the ice-cold water into the plastic pool, Charlie would always manage to get in the way. Looking for a refreshing gulp of hose water, Charlie would shove his face in the way of the hose, chomping at the water as if it was food you should chew. Once we finally were able to fill the pool, we would screw the hose into the sprinkler and run through it with him. Whether we were chasing him or he was chasing us, it was always a good time. I remembered all the little moments of our life together and that helped. It didn’t fix the hole that now resides in my heart, but it did decrease in size. Now, even though I still miss him dearly, I recall, reminisce, and relive those memories.