On Thursday, May 28, 2015 my dog of fifteen years was hit by a cable truck and passed away in my care.

Earlier that morning, I was off work. It's been raining a lot lately and so business has been slow in the local food industry. Memorial Day, being a national holiday in America, has also sent work schedules off for people who work 9-5 jobs. Memorial Day was the first holiday I have had off work in around two years because the nature of my work demands that I work holidays. And I knew what I was getting into there. Days off work are a luxury to me around national holidays, and so Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day (my birthday, oddly enough), and basically every other day I work have started feeling more like... well, any regular day. Just busier.

So, after that whole scare with my anxiety meds, I needed to start taking it easy. So I've been gardening and whistling and spending time with my pets. I've been picking up litter in the yard; weeding; helping the ants outside so they wouldn't feel the need to come into the house... you know, just small things that helped me deal with stress.

Our trash pick-up service has been on a weird schedule lately. Sometimes they come in the morning, sometimes they come in the afternoon. They pick up the trash on Wednesdays, but the holiday pushed everything back a day.

I woke up that morning early, probably around seven on my own. My cats were antsy, and they tried bolting out the door. One of them succeeded. We have lost cats to the road before when I was a kid. These two are now indoor cats. He made it down to the parked car off the porch until I managed to slowly creep up to him, lightly snapping my fingers and looking him in the eyes; and then I managed to snatch him up and bring him inside. I put a jester collar on one for trying to leave the house, and a pet harness on the other to try and tell him that if he wanted to go outside, he would need to learn how to walk properly in that bewitching contraption.

I put a leash on him and tried walking him up and down the stairs.

Now, Jewel, being the jealous doggie she always had been, was feeling neglected. So, I decided to walk outside with her and do some gardening. We have an invisible fence and she had been trained not to wander off. However, she was always hopping that fence by wearing out her collar's battery and then running off. This has happened on walks when her collar has snapped and she ran off into the road.

I was trying to get a battery out of an old solar hybrid lantern and I walked up to the road to toss it into the garbage. Jewel must have thought we were going for a walk. I didn't see her until she was flying across the road. She was always quiet when she was getting into trouble. I ran into the road without thinking and pulled her into the grass out front. She was still alive, and opening up... She never moaned or whined... She just tried to move her jaw to talk to me... And I just kept my hand on her head and told her it was going to be okay. It wasn't long until she was gone.

The guy who hit her stopped and I asked him to call someone. This one woman working for a veterinary hospital nearby stopped with a broken hand and helped me. I gave her Jewel's collar with her tags and she comforted me. The man who hit her helped me get her into a bag. I told her to keep the remains until I had spoken to my family. I said my goodbyes. I decided to plant a memorial garden where she was buried. We picked her up later that day, and I buried her with the shirt I was wearing when it happened. I filled it with an old pair of my shorts, and food from every last meal I shared with her (yogurt, cheese sticks, pizza, etc). I got the idea, I think, from an old Gary Paulsen book I read when I was in middle school. There was this custom hunters had where they would cut off the head of the animal they killed and put the food they ate in the mouth as a sign of respect. Well, I am not cutting off her head, thanks. But, I guess it just makes me feel like I'm keeping her close.

She helped me a lot through my first two depressions and all of my anxiety. She was my best friend and my most loyal companion for the past fifteen years. She died acting like she was still a curious little doggie. I owe her fifteen years at the very least.

I want to plant some pine out back. She loved exploring and running and staying cool in the shade. I think she would like that.

...

The splatter is still on the road in front of my family's house. This has just brought up too many painful memories to deal with all at once. Everyone gets at least one moment in their lives that, no matter how hard they want to forget, they just know it's impossible, and then they finally make their peace with it. This is just one that isn't going to heal for me.

I'm... handling this as best I can. I'm not relapsing into depression. I've been talking a lot with friends and my family has been very supportive. I've just been trying really hard lately with everything; getting a new job and going through a frustrating interview process, and then working on my family situation and figuring out my orientation, and trying to be healthy despite being called pretentious for not wanting to die of a heart attack (which is basically what going into culinary arts was based off of initially for me. I've always had weak lungs, and after that it's always one problem after another), and then I had to take care of my dog because everyone in my family is just so busy with work because of the economy and things changing like crazy...

I just need a fresh start after all of this.

Ultimately I was there for her when she needed me the most. And now I'm just trying to make the most out of an unfortunate situation.

And that's it.

That's all this is, and that's all I've ever been trying to do on some level.

I don't care about marriage, I don't care much for any particular religion, really, and I don't care about people telling me what I should and shouldn't like. I get to decide who I love, not my orientation. I get to decide how to bury my dog, not the government. I get to decide what the most important thing in this world is to me, not any book. And right now I am just... so, so tired and only at age twenty three.

Found a four-leaf clover today when I was visiting her out back. My luck is ridiculously stupid. It's annoying.

I plucked it by the roots and planted it with my avocado sapling. It's been growing for about a year now.

...

I might be gone a while. I need to watch the heck out of some Markiplier videos right now. =\