Pets are family. Anyone with a beloved furry friend knows this to be true. They’re there for us, exuberantly sharing their adoration and loyalty, but not eternally. Their lives come to an end much too soon and although it’s something to accept and prepare for, it’s a goodbye accompanied by such heartbreak that it seems we can never be fully prepared for it.

My old friend just turned fifteen, one hundred and five in people years, and while every hour with him is a blessing, I know what is to come, whether in a month or not for another year or two.

The fact that I’m at college and he is living in my dad’s house while I’m away adds to the feeling that my time with him is limited. Something that has helped in the meantime has been to embrace my feelings of fear and dread, put them into words, into writing, and create something from it.

--

One day you’ll wake

and you’ll lie by my feet as I bake,

hobble over and rest closer by just for company’s sake.

One day you’ll wake

and your eyes will feel different as you take

a glance up at my voice and I check -- still the shade of snowflakes.

One day you’ll wake

and you’ll wince as you feel the ache,

boy, you’ll get up too quickly and find that your sore joints, they quake.

One day you’ll wake

and you’ll dread the trip you’ll need to make

to the backyard that now seems so far. It feels better to wait…

---

One day I’ll wake

as my sorrow-filled heart surely breaks.

You were there as I baked, eyes the shade of snowflakes,

but you ached as you quaked and I knew it’d be selfish to wait…

---

One day I’ll wake

with a memory of love and a paw marked in ink

on the nape of my neck so I’ll never forget.

Bittersweet when he’s left,

though I know

I will see him again,

my beloved old friend.

(By Chelsea Monk)