It’s been 48 hours and the only two words I can use to adequately describe my state right now are: broken and lost. 

I keep thinking I should do things like clean the house, tidy up the back garden in between deluges of rain, change the linen on my bed, make a banana cake for Love Bug for school lunches this week, read. But I can’t seem to actually do any of it. 

I want to lay on my bed and hold onto Beary and let my tears come when they come. He looks as broken and lost as I feel. We have been all but inseparable for two days and nights. 

We took Love Bug to school yesterday morning and made drop off last as long as we possibly could. We got coffee. We filled up the car with petrol. We went to another place to put air in the tyres. Whether they needed it or not. We went to the pet store to buy Beary a new halter. Eventually we had to come home.

I opened the front door and he bounded down the hallway tail wagging, looking for his best friend. He went from room to room then looked at me with that gorgeous goofy face of his and whimpered. It was like he only just remembered.

Last night we were on the couch together and he heard a noise. He looked up, glanced at me then stared at the door for a full minute, ears alert. As the seconds wore on I watched him deflate, realising that she was not there.

A home with no Bella doesn’t feel like a home. Opening the door without the rhythmic thumping of her tail on the wall as she eagerly awaits my arrival feels wrong. Not seeing her happy face there carrying a gift of a toy to welcome me home was like a knife through my heart.

Part of me wants to leave the house exactly as it is. Exactly. Not clean for fear I will get rid of all fibres of her that are floating around. Not put away her food bowl, but leave it there next to Beary’s forever. Not clear out the garden for poop between torrential downpours of rain for fear of getting rid of every part of her. Not wash the blankets on my bed which still have her fur stuck to them and her blood stains from where the rotten tumour attacked her nose.

Another part of me wants to close the door to the house and never go back in. To move somewhere else immediately, so that I don’t see shadows of her around every corner. So that I don’t hear her footsteps in the hall, when there are no footsteps there at all. 

It was a cool night last night. I got into bed. It was the first properly cool night we’ve had in a long time. The turn of weather that would have seen Bella nuzzle under my arm and burrow under the covers to curl up behind my knees. When she warmed up she’d wriggle back up far enough that her nose poked out from under the covers, but not too far that she couldn’t snuggle in and be my little spoon.

I am worried I’ll forget. Forget her smell. Forget her warmth. Forget how her ears feel. Forget the sunshine/dirt/popcorn smell of her paws. Time will be my saviour and my terror. It will take from me things I can’t bear to part with.

Oh how I miss her. With a force that crushes my chest.