Earlier this year, my partner and I had a problem. I needed to be away from home for five weeks, so someone had to be home with my big, beautiful sausage dog. My partner needed to go to India sometime this year to do some Hindu ritual for his mother and he arranged to go back home when my thing was done. So, I finished my thing and my partner has left.

Unfortunately, my best friend (the sausage dog), got really sick and his quality of life wasn’t very good and I had to make the difficult decision to euthanise him. I really miss him still. His urn is here and I still talk to him sometimes. I still tell him he’s a good boy. I tell him I miss him. He was such a good, sweet boy. I wish we could have spent more time together. I adopted him when he was 7 years old. I just wanted to make his life better. His circumstances weren’t very good: he had a few different homes and I got him. I was always afraid that he would think that he’d be alone again or be passed from person to person.

Losing a pet is so hard. As I said, he was my best friend. We would go on short road trips. He’d sleep in the passenger seat and I’d drive us to the park or the beach. I miss having that company with me.

So yeah, my partner has gone back “home” for a month. 2 days have passed. I am left in a big quiet house. I wish my dog was here with me… or that he could lay together in his chair and watch videos of animals. Or eat vegetables and fruit together. I go to the store and see all the things we used to eat together. I remember how excited he would get when he saw me come in with food bags. He knew I usually got him something… carrots, baby cucumbers, tomatoes, bananas… sometimes I am driving back from the store and realise that no one is going to get as excited as he does over bananas.

I’m just sad, I guess and that’s normal. It’s okay to process this feeling of loneliness at times. It makes me appreciate the people who stay or have stayed in my life. I’m lucky to have been able to look after such a wonderful, sweet dachshund.

I keep telling my partner that I’m going to find one while he’s away. My partner seems to think that I’m over losing my “puppy” in August. I’ve been sad for a while. I don’t know if this feeling will ever go away but what I do know is that it just takes time to process loss. I have to keep reminding myself how happy I will be to meet everyone (pets included) when my time is up.

Who knows how long I’ll be waiting.