Three years ago on Christmas day I witnessed the death of my first true love, a Bichon Frise’. Gigi was 8 years old and I was 15, and it was with her and my mother on a small black couch that I first learned what death was, and I felt it in my arms. From that point on I began to age at the rate of my beloved dog, at five times the speed of everybody else, until I became old in a way that didn’t reflect my cluelessness and naivety, but my pain. Three years later I was on that same black couch with my mother, another beloved dog in our arms, too weak to stand up on her own. We were at the only emergency veterinary clinic in Rapid City, one that we knew all too well. Her name was Mabel, and she died in that clinic too, in my arms, and I felt death again for the second time.

It is the loss of these two sources of unconditional love that brings me here, where I can finally write about the time that existed between them and the impact they had on everything I did. When I lost Gigi, I thought I would never be so loved again. Now that Mabel is gone, I find myself looking for something to compare to the happiness she gave me, just by letting me be devoted to her.

It has been three weeks since my sweet border collie mix looked up at me with her ethereal eyes, rich gold with green lining, otherworldly in not only their color but in the way they held onto my gaze and never let go. It has been three months since I spent my 19th birthday with my best friend, so wild and alive, on the day that marked the three year anniversary of her adoption. She was a baby when I got her on my 16th birthday, and still a baby in many ways when she died so young, at the age of three, after her internal organs began to shut down. One after another, possibly caused by poisoning from weed killers and pesticides. We don’t really know exactly what the culprit was, just that it was fast, too fast to process and too late to prevent. She is gone, my pride and joy. And once again I have become acutely aware of my complete and utter aloneness.

It is not in my physical seclusion that I feel lonely; I have always required solitude almost more than human contact; but in my grieving, I guess. Does it suffice to say that nobody understands? Or that I’m tired, and I feel unable to grow from such a tragedy that was so unnecessary and so unfair? This loss is different from the last one, and in many ways it is more significant, too. There is no part of my being that wants more than to be with her, or that values her innocence more than I have in this stage of my life.

I suppose I can say that I have been through quite a bit in the past few years, what with the initial depression that followed immediately after the death of my first dog, the tremendous weight gain that followed and the subsequent slow, carefully calculated weight loss. I developed a fear of social interaction and anything high school related, as well as insomnia and anxiety. As my darkest depression began to pass with the help of medication I moved swiftly into my rebellious stage, and embarked on the small adventures that eventually lead to my greatest adventure and greatest rebellion- my cross-country bike trip.

I call it The Great Escape, because that’s what it has become; now that I am home again I sometimes feel like it was nothing more than a recreational outlet, as I find myself in the same place I was three years ago. Though I have changed in many ways, I am fundamentally the same in my weak, underdeveloped coping capabilities. I simply can’t deal with loss, and I haven’t the slightest idea how to grieve. But I am determined to keep from falling back into the depression that I became so accustomed to after Gigi’s death.

I was a child then, and now I am more or less an adult. I raised Mabel from the time that she was a puppy, and I knew her through every stage of her life. I shared something with her that I couldn’t possibly have shared with a childhood pet, because I was primarily responsible for her well being. And more so, she was responsible for my well being; as all of this depression was reaching a peak, she was there for me every step of the way. She was the one that understood, and I was able to cling onto her physically as well as emotionally. Now I can do neither.

I don’t think my goal is to move on; rather to resist the seemingly inevitable regression that accompanies loss. I have that unshakable remorse that manifests itself inside of all of my memories of her, and the fear of losing the memories if I let go of so much as one ounce of regret. I don’t know if everybody feels this way when they lose someone they love… but I have no desire to stop hurting. I don’t want to be free of her, just of my silence and self-created loneliness. There has got to be someone out there who knows what this is like, and there has got to be someone out there who isn’t afraid of it.