Nothing will ever prepare you for death.

Not time, not the knowledge of its inevitability, not illness–Death just happens.

And no one’s ever really happy about it, but we deal and that’s the best we can do.

It was a Friday evening in December. I was a freshman in highschool. I was standing in the kitchen doing God knows what (probably getting a snack after a long day at my nerd school) when my parents came home from work.
I asked my mom about the puppy she’d promised us. Her coworker owned a beautiful chocolate brown chow chow and she’d just had puppies. She was going to buy one.

Mom said they’d gone but he didn’t have anymore dogs. She tried to keep a straight face as I groaned in disappointment, but couldn’t as the front of her jacket started twitching.

I ran to her and she unzipped her coat.

There he was, this tiny, black, fuzzy, angry, little ball of fur, who smelled like death.

“Why does he smell like that?”

I still don’t know. Maybe it was the kibble they gave him? Maybe he hadn’t had a bath since he came out of the womb. Regardless he smelled pretty gross. There was no new puppy scent.

One thing was for sure, the jerk hated being held.

He was fighting against my mom and when I reached for him, the little brat hissed at me like the very spawn of Satan.

I spent the whole first week of his life in our house with him. I learned he really liked milky cereal, he hated fuzzy slippers, he liked hiding under beds, and his tiny little teeth were as sharp as needles.

But he was the cutest little evil thing.

After days of trying to think up a name my mom suggested Baloo, like the big black bear from the Jungle Book and it worked.

Eventually he faced the facts that he was stuck with us and allowed himself to be loved and squeezed and begrudgingly cuddled sometimes.

He loved long walks, using every opportunity to scare the crap out of strangers. He especially hated men. The only man he liked was my dad, and only after dad established the fact that he was the alpha and Baloo resigned himself with being the beta. But there was no room for anyone else.
He lived for car rides, sticking his head out of the window, letting the wind flow through his glorious mane. He looked like a mix between a lion and a bear. Cute but terrifying.

He loved cheese and ice cream and mangoes and pizza and hot dogs straight off the grill and all the food he was probably not supposed to eat.

But how can you deny those big puppy dog eyes?

My mom used to make sure Baloo had an enchilada before making the rest of us one.

The dog lived like a spoiled king.

He was a part of our family: the short, furry, angry kid that didn’t talk much, unless it was to bark when something annoyed him, or as he got older, when he was hungry.

A dog’s life is over far too quickly.
At best you get maybe 10, 15, or if you’re really lucky 20 years with them. And what is that compared to a human’s lifetime?

When you’re holding a puppy you don’t think about the future. You don’t think about failing hips. Or diseases. Or muscle loss. You don’t think about doggy incontinence. Or about carrying him up and down the stairs to go outside.

But it’s the harsh reality of old age.

Baloo had a good life. He was strong. He was healthy. He was happy, in a crochety kind of way.

Age crept on him and in the end we knew we had to let him go. Even

though I’d made him promise me a long time ago that I would be allowed to die first.

I loved that dog. I love that dog.

Thank you, Baloo.

You were a very good boy.