Farewell Friend
I found him floating in the pool out back, in that sunny backyard he loved so much. It’s taken me two months to write that. It still sounds as surreal to me as the day it happened in late January.
For 17 years, he was my best friend. I knew he was getting to the end of his journey, but to find him like that. To know he was alone in the end, looking for me, and I wasn’t there.
I buried him in that sunny backyard, and planted a magnolia tree on top of where he lays. There hasn’t been a day I don’t miss him, and there likely never will. Grief has a way of becoming a part of us.
There’s one specific memory I keep going back to – it’s from late 2019. Before covid, before I bought that place in Florida, just before I started my new role at NBC.
Him and I took a week long road trip to Acadia. It was a last minute decision, but we lucked out and happened to be the very end of the peak foliage.
It’s one of my favorite trips, the coastal rocky Maine shoreline erupting in gold and amber. Gizmo and I hiked miles that week, and spent just as many capturing stars with my camera on a midnight Cadillac Mountain.
He may have only been three pounds, but he wanted to go everywhere with me. And wherever we went, he wanted to be in the lead.
He was the best partner in wanderlust I could have ever asked for.
Losing him jarred me, ripped off a blindfold of sorts. Grief doesn’t just become a part of us, I suppose it shapes us too…and maybe, if we’re lucky, it awakens us.
Who knew one of the biggest influences in my life would be a 3 pound chihuahua.
You’re forever in my heart, thank you for being such a loving friend.
