Scooped up from a Super 8 parking lot in Rochester–with my old love–and only Golden Retriever experience. You were handed to me, “Bernard,” and you wriggled with relief at being let out of your small crate in that big white van that carried you and others from North Carolina to a Northern, indoor life. A small panic did rise inside me at this bold choice at 24. 

Your body lengthened, widened, and your snowy white patches became dense swaths of bluetick and redtick. Your tail, once dipped in a can of white paint, was stippled too with black spots. The arrow on your forehead that lent your name, morphed and compacted between your brows–I should have waited before permanently affixing its outline to my own skin. Ears stayed silken until the end. And the love that came, and how I changed, was more vast that I ever imagined. 

Over the next years we built our language. Miniscule movements of your brows, caramel then later grey, the height of your head, shape of your eyes, and width of stance. Your pitchy haranguing in the presence of any need to wait: for dinner, movement, a coveted seat. Each note, timbre and inflection of your voice meant something to me outside of the bounds words. I could explain to others who loved you what you meant, but it was just a crude translation. 

Back then, if I were to order up a dog, it would have been a different one. As beautiful as you, but one that liked to cuddle, that didn’t howl at me when I stopped on the street to greet a friend, that didn’t try to murder all skateboarders. A placating love bug that caused no trouble - a Golden Retriever! With you came quite a bit of inconvenience and loss of control. And with that, I learned about letting go of the ideal. I learned to love you in all your aloofness, and to stop apologizing for you. You were enthusiastic about your autonomy, and with time, I found ways let you have it. Then, the adventures really shone.

When your bones were strong enough you learned to run with my bike. You barked at unsettling forest sounds in our unfinished cabin. You slept long and waited on the walker while I worked 26 hour shifts in medical school, laid behind the readers at my poetry nights. You stayed independent, choosy about touch sometimes even from me. Later, we lived on the road, driving for months. We slept in hospital housing, hotels, motels, rentals, guests rooms. Newfoundland, Haida Gwaii, Mojave desert, Coote’s Paradise, Toronto Island, subways, ferries, mountains, Koreatown karaoke, rushing rivers, music festivals. Home in each place where the other rested. 

And lately–you had a second human who stayed with us. One who was an early riser for your breakfast and who would drive you to High Park before I’d even gotten out of bed. With our move back to Toronto came an army of skateboards and scooters, and your frequent delight in terrorizing them. It also brought a lot less tears, less nights of just the two of us, a more regular cast of friends visiting us and petting your head while you were curled by the fire in your favourite chair. 

How long will it be until my mind stops taking leaps to create your form out of a strewn backpack, a pattern in the carpet, a blanket thrown over the arm of your chair? Is that creak of the floor you slinking toward me? When will I walk away from a plate of food at your head’s height? 

You never knew about vet bills, shift swaps to make it home for your dinnertime, or that this life that I love dearly was built with you in mind. You don’t know what a photograph is, or that I have 7000 of you. You didn’t know that the furniture I chose, the way I cooked my meals, and how I planned my days, was all because you were there. That over 11 and a half years my brain was wired for you, for us. 

There must be a perfectly written account of what it is to love and lose a dog. A beautiful and staggering account of this pain. If I find it and read it, my heart might drop right out of my chest. Without elegance or ingenuity: a part of me is gone forever. I am reaching for it, for your soft and heavy head, the smell of your paws, the sound of your voice. A creature all your own but part of me. 

I am screaming silently at the sky, begging to be able to run my hand from your brow to tail tip, feeling your soft fur of every colour. I will cry for you each day for a very long time, and I will remember you until I have no remembering left.