Stella – It still hurts, the pain of losing you.
Some days I still can’t believe you are gone. You were here for so long, but not long enough.
I got a new dog, a border collie puppy. She came home with me exactly six weeks after I’d said goodbye to you. You’d hate her. Weirdly, she sometimes reminds me of you though. She sleeps on my shoes. She is confidently cheeky. She has a defiant look sometimes too, as if she’ll chuck a tantrum. You always loved a tantrum, always argued back. She chews on all my long pants and skirts when I wear them, even the black skirt I’ve never been able to part with because it still has holes near the hem from your puppy teeth. I speak to her as I spoke to you, about everything, in the hopes that I’ll develop a telekinesis with her akin to ours.
I’m not sure you knew what was happening to your body, or if you just started feeling more tired. Hemangiosarcoma. What an awful thing to get. The day you collapsed was the worst day I’ve known until a few days later when we said goodbye and you left. And I left you. Your body never came home again. Maybe if I was stronger, I could’ve dealt with you coming back small. I never wanted you as anything other than you though. You are my greatest loss.
You taught me, supported me and loved me unconditionally. I liked it when Dad said you left me in a better place than when you found me.
There’s something to be said for your species, the fact that I would go through the pain of one day losing another for the chance of a connection unlike any other. One of our favourite people, Joe, sent me a video about the pain of losing a dog. The people talking in the video mentioned a poem by Joseph Brodsky called ‘A Song’, the lines, “I wish I knew no astronomy, when stars appear”. I wish I didn’t know the pain, but in knowing the pain I knew you. Stella, a star.
New puppy has one blue eye. I like to think you left a part of you here, a part of you in her, my dear blue girl.
I love you so much.
I miss you every day.
Thank you for being such a wonderful friend.
– Ally @happyfestivusgeorgie (Stella’s instagram – @happy_heeler)