Downer warning: DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE PRONE TO TEARS

I have sad news for my friends and family. For all of you who have been in my life for the last year and known and loved myself and my dog, Xena, I have to tell you she is no longer with us.

Friday night she ran off down the street and was hit by a car. Obviously there is much more to the story and just now I am not really up for telling it. I was a long Friday night and a tragic Saturday morning and for the moment I just don’t have the words.

Although most of my anger is self directed in ways such as knowing I could have been a better pet owner, I could have loved her better and taken more precautions – I also know it was no one’s fault. It was an accident.

That doesn’t stop the tears or the grief or the empty feeling when I look for her and she isn’t there. Friday night I dreamt of her; at that time she was still missing and we’d been out looking for her with a group of people for several hours. I slept on the floor in front of the living room door open knowing she would come in at any moment in the night and have to climb over me to get in the house.

I shivered and woke up at every sound but at about 2am I must have been dreaming when she came in the house and crawled up my chest to curl in her spot in my left armpit where she often slept. I looked down at her and she was smaller than I remembered, in fact she was as big as my phone and tucked in a way that made her seem as though she actually were my phone and stuffed in my left bra where I often keep it. I smiled at her and thought, “God! You are so freaking CUTE!” I snuggled her and all my worry and anger of the last several hours of searching for her vanished and I fell back to sleep feeling peaceful.

I woke up at 7 when it was getting light and realized that it had all been a dream. She hadn’t come home and I was still on the floor. Immediately I wondered if she had gone back out the open door but the logic of her being that small and stuffed in my bra like my phone sank in and I realized it had been a dream. She wasn’t home.

So I went back out and kept casing, I put up flyers and posted two ads on craigslist and well as filing lost pet reports with the Multnomah and Clark county animal shelters. Still, even then I was positive that she was just disoriented or sleeping under a bush in my neighborhood.

At 9 am someone called me per my ad on Craigslist and told me to check the Dove Lewis Animal Hospital because they had a lost pet matching my description of Xena. So I ran home and called.

They put me on the phone with a doctor who broke the news to me that she had been hit and brought in and that there wasn’t anything they could do for her but euthanize.

I fucking lost it.

Foolishly, all I could think to do was call my boss to tell her I’d be late for work but even as she picked up the phone I burst into sobs and couldn’t talk or articulate or even breathe and she tried to get me to speak and slow down but all I could do was heave. Clearly, I wouldn’t be making it in to work.

Indigo drove me to Dove Lewis because I wouldn’t stop looking for her until I knew for certain that it was Xena. Once we got there they put us in a grieving room and brought her to us in a box.

It was her and I lost it all over again.

They gave us plenty of time with her then talked about the options for cremation and when I asked how much I owed them for trying to save her, he explain that it was 250$ but had been covered under the Stayed Animal Rescue Fund.

Indigo took me to get coffee and then we went home where I spent the remainder of the day pacing, crying, driving to work (I have no idea why, I think I just wanted to be someplace familiar and knew I wouldn’t be able to actually do any work), the café, the house, out to a movie (cuz I didn’t want to be in my head), curled up in bed, then drinking.

I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself. I just kept feeling restless and empty. When I finally fell into bed I slept for 12 hours in the same position. Then when I woke up I immediately went to let her outside and had to remember that she wasn’t there.

I am sad, obviously, and disoriented. I’m grieving and confused. My bedroom still smells liker her and I keep looking over to the pile of blanket where she usually sleeps. I want to be outside where I don’t have to constantly see that she is missing, but I don’t know where to go that I won’t burst into tears.

Currently, as I write I have had several cups of coffee and I’m feeling somewhat drained and also a little philosophical.

I will be okay. My room mate will be okay. We will all be okay. I’m just grieving right now.