When my childhood dog died, I cried for three days. During those three days, I probably slept a total of six hours. I was nineteen years old at the time and had gotten that dog—Princess—when I was three years old. I was devasted. I could tell you exactly what I was doing the day that she died. I could tell you that I had on my high school English honor society shirt. I could tell you that it was roughly 9:40 pm when I let her outside and her legs stopped working. I could tell you that when the vet told us it was time he was wearing green scrubs and that when she tried to look up at me for the last time as she went to sleep there was one brown spot in the white of her left eye.
When my grandpa died two months later, all I remember is that when my mom called me from the hospital and told me in a tear-choked voice that Grandpa was gone, I said, “Oh.” Continue reading “Two Bad Things by Nora Balboa”