Quacker Jack

A year ago my dog died. He followed a boy into the kitchen, twitched and fell down dead. There was nothing we could do. It wasn't our fault. He just died.  His name was Quacker Jack and he was 6 years old.

I wasn't there when it happened. I got the call while I was having lunch with a friend. I pretended that I was okay but I wasnt. I cried the whole way home. "Not my Jack."

I got home to find him lying in a puddle of his own urine on my kitchen floor. I laid down beside him and sobbed. I hugged him and petted him, crying and keening, "Not my Jack."

Eventually I picked him up and carried him to the car. I held him on my lap all the way to the vets. They asked if I was ready to let him go. "No, never, not my Jack." We paid crazy amounts of money so I could have his ashes back. And then I drove away with empty arms and a broken heart, to a silent house.

Eating toast for breakfast was impossible without my best friend to sit beside me and eat the crusts. I couldn't go for a walk without him to walk with. Surrounded with people I was so desperately lonely.

I immediately got a new dog. A girl dog, a black dog. But she wasn't my dog and I didn't like her. She was a good dog,  but she wasn't my dog. She knew it too. I didn't share my toast with her. I just stopped eating toast. I didn't take her for walks, I just stayed home. She didn't crawl under my bed during storms. She didn't sleep with my boy. She didn't fit because she wasn't my Jack.

Last week I sent her away. She deserves a family that loves her and that will never be me because she isn't Jack. I cried when she left not because I miss her, but because she wasn't Jack and I miss my dog so much.

It's been a year. Today I took a little wooden box out of a cardboard box and put it on the shelf. Today I unplugged the invisible fence. Today I cried. My house is empty without a dog. But not just any dog will do.

Love comes in all different shapes and sizes as does grief. I thought I could just put a new dog in my house and go on like it never happened. I know that I have been depressed this past year. I couldn't find joy in anything. My life was gray. I didn't realize how bad it was. I really don't know how to heal from this but pretending that everything is okay isn't working. So today I am sitting with grief.  Today I am remembering.

Someday there will be another dog that I fall in love with but there will never be another Quacker Jack.