Boo

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Abstract

was more than I could bear. I simply couldn’t make her understand that she was never going to see me again. I couldn’t make her understand that everything she ever knew was about to be replaced by nothing — or maybe some strange something. Maybe we’ll never really know. Maybe this is all there is. And maybe this vague and complicated universe of ours understands me when I cry, “I miss you so much, Boo,” out into the void.</p><p id="0e9b">Boo could never truly tell me that she was ready to leave. Maybe it’s why I’m still stuck wondering and negotiating about the small things that might have gone differently, about the reality where she might still be at my side chasing rocks, glimmers of refracted sunlight dancing idly through falling leaves. I worry that I’ll always regret allowing those days to come to an end.</p><p id="5411">I’m not sure how final years turned into final months and I’m not sure how final months turned to final days. I’m not sure how those days turned into final walks, and final walks into final breaths. I can’t believe we spent seventeen years together.</p><p id="d82e">Maybe if I’d learned to live in the moment I could have squeezed more out of every second with you. Maybe time’s flow would have slowed for us. Maybe that warm autumn day in 2019 wouldn’t be gone forever. Maybe we stopped to smell the roses and go

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t caught in a trance. Maybe all of this grief and regret and yearning is just a dream and maybe I never lost you at all.</p><p id="d88a">And maybe you’re drifting quietly off into a glimmer of some bygone golden hour. Maybe you’re still with me even if I can’t see it. That’s what they say isn’t it? That gone isn’t truly gone — that spirits linger? Surely the most loving ones must.</p><p id="3a73">Maybe now when I throw pebbles into the stream, there’s some part of you still here chasing them— bounding airily toward each new ripple in an elated frenzy. But I can’t see you. I throw a stone into those shallow waters and the ripples never return. The rock sinks without soul and rests on the moss-covered stream bed. It sits beside tadpoles and reminds me of how sorely I miss you.</p><div id="fd38" class="link-block"> <a href="https://benulansey.medium.com/gone-isnt-gone-2a137ba99d6b"> <div> <div> <h2>Gone isn’t Gone</h2> <div><h3>A Lucid Dream 14</h3></div> <div><p>benulansey.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*o420xJA0HByYMs1ndjgp-w.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

A Tribute

Photo of me and Boo

When my first dog died, it changed me to my very core. I was born an only child and I spent my first seven years that way. But Boo entered my life on my eighth birthday. She was the closest that I ever came to having a sibling.

One of the most impossible things to accept about losing a pet is that they can never truly understand what it is to be lost. There are no hopes or illusions for pets about what lies beyond. They’re gentle, loving creatures sailing off into the unknown. There are no words of consolation to be exchanged.

Sometimes the declines of our pets can happen gradually, and sometimes they can happen overnight. Sometimes you’re given time to accept the inevitable and sometimes you’re not. Sometimes the dog you got for your eighth birthday can pull you eagerly to the stream to play her favorite game and then pass away four days later. Even the roads that stretch on through the entirety of our lives eventually dead end. Things change. People die. Animals die.

But the idea of losing this loving creature I’d spent so much of my life with was more than I could bear. I simply couldn’t make her understand that she was never going to see me again. I couldn’t make her understand that everything she ever knew was about to be replaced by nothing — or maybe some strange something. Maybe we’ll never really know. Maybe this is all there is. And maybe this vague and complicated universe of ours understands me when I cry, “I miss you so much, Boo,” out into the void.

Boo could never truly tell me that she was ready to leave. Maybe it’s why I’m still stuck wondering and negotiating about the small things that might have gone differently, about the reality where she might still be at my side chasing rocks, glimmers of refracted sunlight dancing idly through falling leaves. I worry that I’ll always regret allowing those days to come to an end.

I’m not sure how final years turned into final months and I’m not sure how final months turned to final days. I’m not sure how those days turned into final walks, and final walks into final breaths. I can’t believe we spent seventeen years together.

Maybe if I’d learned to live in the moment I could have squeezed more out of every second with you. Maybe time’s flow would have slowed for us. Maybe that warm autumn day in 2019 wouldn’t be gone forever. Maybe we stopped to smell the roses and got caught in a trance. Maybe all of this grief and regret and yearning is just a dream and maybe I never lost you at all.

And maybe you’re drifting quietly off into a glimmer of some bygone golden hour. Maybe you’re still with me even if I can’t see it. That’s what they say isn’t it? That gone isn’t truly gone — that spirits linger? Surely the most loving ones must.

Maybe now when I throw pebbles into the stream, there’s some part of you still here chasing them— bounding airily toward each new ripple in an elated frenzy. But I can’t see you. I throw a stone into those shallow waters and the ripples never return. The rock sinks without soul and rests on the moss-covered stream bed. It sits beside tadpoles and reminds me of how sorely I miss you.