Once there was a boy who lived in a sprawling metropolis, an often lonely place miles from the quaint forgettable suburb where he grew up. His heart ached for connection, as our hearts do when we’re young and carefree and dwelling in a city like that, so he sought out companionship. Sure, he had friends, and sure, he had family, but the boy longed for something more.
He searched in all the usual places, but one day, the boy came upon an animal shelter (not the typical place, for sure, to search for many types of companion). There, he found a beautiful black dog with the Pokémon name from a state hundreds of miles south from that place, staring back at him, a nub of a tail wagging tentatively. The dog had waited – sometimes patiently, sometimes frustratedly, often times lonely – for the perfect human to show up and adopt him. It had been a long time, and the dog was worried no one would ever let him into their lives. But in that moment, an energy so rare but so beautiful and so strong passed between the boy and the dog that they knew they belonged together.
The boy adopted the dog, who tried to repay his act of faith and more-so trust by accompanying him hither and yon. No obstacle could stand between the dog and his boy. No, no, the dog didn’t want to be anywhere else but with his boy. All the heartache, all the moving, all the cages, and all those times the dog was scared, they were all behind him, and he needed, no, he wanted, to show his boy his thankfulness through his devotion. This steadfast love earned the dog his forever name: Buddy, from the English word meaning “friend”. And Buddy was so proud of this very apt name his boy gave him because that was what he was: the boy’s buddy.
They were happy. Road trips, visiting family, playing in the parks, walks throughout the city’s treelined streets: Buddy and his boy built memories and solidified their bond. Buddy was rarely jealous and welcomed others in the boy’s life: friends, family, acquaintances, lovers. Some would come and some would go, but Buddy took it all in his stride. And during those nights where the city roared outside while his boy cried in the midnight blues of their apartment from yet another broken heart, Buddy would snuggle even closer to his boy, hoping his love could be enough to help his boy heal. And it did. Very often it did.
One day, the monster came – as monsters often do – and crept its tentacles within Buddy. Neither Buddy nor his boy knew at first, but his boy was so in tune with his dog, he knew something was wrong and sought help. Some vets argued against it, that the monster in Buddy’s body would take his life within a year, but his boy knew he had to give Buddy a fighting chance to thrive, to survive. To save Buddy, his front arm was removed, and the boy spared no expense to help his dog live and flourish.
There were lots of tears and many fears, but the boy’s love and tender care fueled Buddy’s drive to endure and recover. Indeed, Buddy pushed on and learned to first walk, and then run again, earning him the nickname of Buddy the Tripawd. Buddy liked this nickname, and he was thankful his boy had so much faith in him to do so much to save his life.
Buddy loved his boy, and his boy loved him. They were soulmates of a sort, that rare bond we find maybe a few times in our lives if we are lucky, two longing souls meeting at the right time in the right place, intertwining to walk through life together.
The boy grew older and moved back to suburbia. He fell in love with the girl, her two beautiful children – one girl, one boy – and her own pack of dogs and cats, and the spaces in both Buddy’s heart and the boy’s expanded to surround them all with love. A duo became a family, and this made Buddy even more happy; he had a pack: his boy’s pack, his pack.
Over the years, his boy and his girl added a little boy to the family, and a little girl too, and they moved into a big, beautiful house with an expansive, open yard, which pleased Buddy because he and his fur siblings could romp around outside when the weather was nice. Inside, they had more than enough space too, to spend with the others or be by himself, both of which Buddy enjoyed. He especially liked it when one of the kids dropped their food on the floor and he scored a treat. It was so much different than some of the smaller apartments he and the boy had lived in years previously, and their lives were much fuller than it had been at the start.
Buddy, his boy, and their family lived a charmed life in a warm house, and that’s where this story should end: with a happily ever after.
But the monster returned, wiser and sneakier. It snaked its way through Buddy’s body, so stealthily that even Buddy didn’t notice until one day, he did. He tried to hide it, and he tried to fight it, until he couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer.
One day, the boy noticed too, and knowing he couldn’t heal him, took him to a foreign room in a foreign building full of strange people. The strange people told the boy things that made him cry, but Buddy knew the monster had won this war’s latest battles, and he didn’t want to hurt his boy or his girl or his pack any more than he needed to hurt them.
So as his boy leaned down, his eyes glassy, his cheeks wet, and whispered beautiful things to his companion, Buddy looked at the boy with an expression as if to say: “It’s okay. I’m tired. I’m not well. Let me go. Our pack will look after you; they’ll give you the love I can no longer give when I’m gone.”
One final bit: “I love you, too.”
His boy felt his chest constrict and his breathing shallow and he wished this moment wasn’t a moment but instead the moment was one where they were running on the beach again, carefree, like they had so many years ago on a day where the sun was warm but the breeze was cool, and the waves lapped against the sand and the seagulls overhead squawked at them, but everything fell away except Buddy and his boy because that was their world, in those specific seconds on that specific strand on that specific day, the two of them, and everything else outside that didn’t matter.
There was a tiny pinching sensation, and Buddy felt his body relax. Peace. No more pain, no more aching, but a soul full of peace. He started to dream of that same beach on that same day that his boy was trying to wish back into existence beside him.
But that’s not the end of the story either, because there is so much more to Buddy than his final moments.
I think love is eternal, and no matter whether you believe that death consumes the essence of us eternally or grants us a stepping-stone to something so much more beautiful beyond our comprehension, we are all eternal when our loved ones hold us in their memories and their hearts.
I do believe there is a beyond, where our loved ones go after, maybe for a little while or maybe forever: that, I don’t know, and I won’t know until I pass.
But if you look up in the winter’s sky, somewhere that way towards the dog constellation, Buddy is there, laying on the grass, whole again, his tail wagging slightly, a small breeze stirring the tufts of fur on his ears. His heart aches for he is missing his pack and his boy, whose heart aches in the same way. Time will dull that ache, trust me, for we do the right thing in easing their suffering and letting them go even though it cuts us as deeply as anything in life ever could. But know we release them with their hearts as full of our love as we can fill them, to tide them over until we are reunited in the great beyond or here on Earth or some other exotic place we cannot even fathom, for I believe souls that love one another find each other again and again and again.
All the other dogs who’ve accompanied us in our lives but have now passed? They’re running up to Buddy and urging him to play – play with us, they howl and they whimper and they whine – and Buddy says he’ll be there in a minute. They gallop off into the lush green pastures, tackling one another and barking and rolling in the grass, smiles adorning their radiating faces.
Buddy looks down at his boy and his girl and his pack, dreaming of the day he will lick and snuggle them all again. Maybe they’ll get to run on that beach together once more. It will happen. He waited for his boy once, in a cage, in a shelter, all those years and many miles ago. It’s so much freer here now, rolling hills as far as the eye can see, a warm sun, and a clear azure sky.
Buddy waited then, and he will wait again, ever so patiently, now. Because love is patient, love is kind, and love is eternal.
Buddy passed away on 19 February 2024 Chicago time.
Beam Me Up, Scotty 
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