I know I haven’t been updating this blog but this was a story I needed to tell and I didn’t know where else to do it.
In the past I’ve written about Pearl, my black lab and how much I love her and her crazy ways.
Well back in March, the day before my 21st birthday and while I was studying for midterms I received a text from my mom saying to call her. I was working on some flashcards so I put my headphones in so my hands would be free while I talked to my mom. Well I placed the call, and I heard the words come out of her mouth “Pearlie passed.” My first reaction was denial, that what she just said didn’t come out of her mouth. I replied with a “what” and again she said it and from there the tears came. She told me how it happened and how the decision to put her down was made but all I kept thinking was it wasn’t real, that everything that was happening at that moment was a dream.
Two days later, I was on my home for spring break. I normally looked forward to going back home but this time was different. While I was on the bus heading to the airport a song got stuck in my head and it was one I hadn’t heard in a really long time; “Fire and Rain,” by James Taylor. A fitting song for what I was feeling. If you’ve never heard it before, here is a link. The lyrics that hit me hardest were the chorus.
“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. I’ve sunny days that I thought would never end. I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend. But I always thought that I’d see you again.”
For me those words rang true. When I left home at the end of winter break, I said goodbye to Pearl but I never thought it was going to be the last time I saw her in person. Yeah, I would facetime with my mom and force her to put Pearl on camera, and I would try to talk to her, despite knowing she was deaf by that point. But I was 2 days away from seeing Pearl again when I got the news that I would never seen her. Yeah I have pictures and yeah I have videos but those are just now distant memories for me.
When I did get home that weekend, it hit me hard. I walked into the house and I went upstairs and I was expecting her to be there even though I knew she wouldn’t be. It instantly brought me to tears. That whole week I was beside myself, thinking I would see her every time I walked down the stairs and one point I heard the doggie door swing, and I was expecting to see her walking through it.
Losing her was one of the hardest things I’ve had to bear but recently these feelings were all drudged up again and it doesn’t hurt any less the second time around.
Being an iPhone user, I wanted to update to iOS 8. I figured after updating my iPad that it would be no problem, however I was wrong. The update failed and I was forced to restore my phone to factory setting and the back up I had didn’t have all the photos that were on my phone, many of which were of Pearl.
I was lucky that the videos on my phone were recovered, those would have been even harder to lose but losing the photos and the stress I went through when I knew what happened felt like I lost Pearl all over again.
Losing a best friend is tough but losing them twice is unbearable, at least it was for me. I really hope that time heals my wound but for now its been reopened and it hurts.