I was a senior in high school, dutifully scribbling notes in chemistry class, when a teacher appeared in the doorway and asked if he could speak to me in the hallway. 

“Your dog was hit by a car this morning. Someone saw her on the side of the interstate. I’m so sorry.”

Numb to my fingertips, I said something dumb, like, “That’s okay.”

An hour later, the same teacher and my older sister drove me to the county animal shelter where her body had been taken.

“We’re here to pick up the St. Bernard,” I told the lady at the front desk. I wiped sweaty palms against my school uniform, the thought occurring to me for the first that I had no idea how to get her home. I wasn’t sure my teacher would be willing to heft the 130-pound body of an animal into his backseat, dead or alive.

The woman nodded with the practiced gravity of a funeral home director. “We have her in the back.”

Determined not to cry, I tried to think how it happened. Cheney (pronounced SHEN-EE) must’ve gotten loose from her chain (she was strong) or worse – maybe I’d forgotten to tie her up before school (all my fault). She had an itch to explore. She’d clearly made her way through the forest and to the interstate. Gotten a little too close… The thought made me queasy.

I followed the woman through a musty-smelling room lined with cages, a dozen hopeful eyes  trailing behind me. 

Already seventy pounds by the time she was five months old, Cheney had become something of a celebrity in my school and neighborhood. Strangers fell in love with her instantly. There was something irresistible about her auburn-colored fur and the freckles on her face. 

She was the wildest St. Bernard I’d ever met with an insatiable, impish need for adventure – jumping out of car windows to chase bunnies, leaping onto white bedspreads after rolling in deer excrement, ripping Christmas lights off of bushes. Once, my refined next-door-neighbor called out for her and she bounded over in such exuberance that she tackled him to the grass.

The last year of my life had been anything but boring. 

The last year of my life had been anything but easy.

The desk lady stepped up to a closed door at the back of the room. This must be where they kept the departed ones, those who were put to sleep or who met tragic ends, tucked away so they wouldn’t upset the ones still hoping for adoption. Now the tears hovered at the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill like hot tea. I was so tired of trying not to fall apart in front of strangers.

Cheney had been a gift on my seventeenth birthday, just three months after my dad’s death. Chyanne, a basketball teammate, had brought a box to my birthday party, and with the magic of a Hallmark movie, I’d pulled off the lid to find a tiny puppy with pink bows on her ears.

We’d been best friends ever since – exploring the woods together, failing puppy training class together. She was the ideal companion, happy to watch National Treasure yet again or listen to me practice piano. Sometimes when I cried, she sat on my feet and let me hold her.

The steel door opened and I felt my feet moving and my heart thundering. I kept my eyes unfocused on the cement floor.

“There she is,” the woman said. 

Cheney started whimpering and crying as soon as she saw me, long tail thumping, nose nudging at the bars of her cage. I dropped to my knees, hands in her fur, and burst into shoulder-wracking sobs.

The woman appeared aghast. Apparently the mournful funeral director act had been pretense. “What? Did you think she was dead?”

I could only nod while Cheney licked my face in unrestrained joy.

“I’ve never loved you and hated you so much,” I told her.

It wasn’t to be Cheney’s last brush with death. Only a year later, she tore ligaments in both knees and couldn’t walk. According to the vet, we could either put her to sleep or assess if she was strong enough for surgery. To my shock, my mother, who was such a tightwad that she squeaked at the store, opted to pay for the surgery.

Cheney came home with titanium knees and a renewed passion for mischief. A neighbor left out a pie to cool and it disappeared with only a trace of Cool Whip on Cheney’s snout. Another time she strolled over to Teays Valley Road and laid down right on the center line, stopping traffic for half a mile, apparently too hot to bother making it to the other side.

I went to college when Cheney was two years old. Life meandered down a new path and never looked back. It wasn’t that we weren’t still friends, it’s just that she thoroughly became Mom’s dog. With the uncanny awareness many dogs have, she knew where she was most needed. She slept by Mom’s side through long, snowy winters and panted her way through humid summers. As Mom’s health failed and rallied time and time again, Cheney was only ever a foot away. 

Years passed and Cheney grew in pudginess and I grew in collegiate knowledge. I got married, finished pharmacy school, moved further away to Pittsburgh, then much further away to Dallas. But every time I visited home, there she’d be – waiting for me at the top of the driveway. Panting, tongue lolling, tail waving. If I close my eyes, I can go back. She’s as much a part of that house as the hardwood floors or the fireplace or the hillsides of green.

I believe God gives us certain gifts for certain seasons and Cheney was my gift. During a time in my life when I’d never felt so alone, she squeezed into my heart and filled a hole with that giant body of hers. Stalwart in her antics. Wild in her joy. Undeterred by a teenager’s anger or grief or restlessness. 

Then she became Mom’s gift, faithful to a fault. Age slowed her body but not her spirit. 

Just a couple weeks ago, my oldest sister called. Cheney was nearing twelve and those knees weren’t holding up like they used to. She was in a lot of pain, could no longer walk. 

“It’s time to say goodbye, Lizzy,” my sister said.

I was surprised when my throat closed over. I thought I’d said goodbye before, long ago when I moved away for good. But that’s the thing about love – it transcends time or place. It sneaks up behind you when you least expect it. Saying goodbye reminds you that to love and be loved is the greatest thing you can do in this world.  

If my life looks anything like Cheney’s, I’ll be quick to forgive. Slow to ignore others. My love will be unconditional and unrestrained, and I’ll always be ready for a slice of cheese and a hug.

We said our final goodbye over video call. This time there was no miraculous turn of events. No plot twist that offered us more time. But her life was all filled up. No regrets – every bunny chased and every hole dug and every stranger loved.

And mine was fuller because of her.