Lily

I followed Lily to the couch, and gently sat next to her. I could feel the warmth of her small body. Sense her shallow breathing. I breathed her in, wishing I could breathe life and health back to her. I knew not to look at her, and gazed out the window instead. We both knew she didn’t have very long, and looking at her thin, frail body only made it harder in our last days together. Hours? We didn’t know. 

We have been inseparable for years. When we met, we gave each other the briefest of once-overs before connecting. We couldn’t have been more different, looking at us. Like her name, Lily was white. And I’m dark as night. Appearance meant little to us. That first day together was so long ago, yet so ingrained in my memory. Since then, our friendship has grown deeper than the roots of the oak tree I was now focusing on in the front yard. A squirrel ran around its trunk, scampering about amongst the fallen acorns. Another season has passed, the leaves would be falling soon, followed by the cold of winter snow. We weathered it all together. 

Lily was wild. And I loved that about her. She was an independent spirit, who looked for adventure and trouble. My opposite. I admired the way she didn’t care what anyone thought, didn’t care what anyone said. When she got mad, she was a destructive force. I didn’t dare get in her way. There was a fire in her. Once, she smashed a glass vase full of roses onto the kitchen floor. She stared at her mess, walked away unfazed, and let the water slowly spread between petals and pieces of glass. I wondered if she always had others clean up life’s messes. 

When we were younger, she ran away. I wasn’t surprised, really. When one door closed, and another opened, Lily was sure to take it. She was gone for several months that time. When she came back, I wondered if she would be changed in some way. If being out on her own had made her more mature, more calm. But no, not my Lily. Still wild, loving, and my best friend. She had a tiny scar over her left eye, and I often wondered how she got it. Was it a fight? An accident? It’s always been a mystery. Like her, and her past, which I also didn’t know much about. But sometimes these things don’t matter. Where we come from does not have to dictate where we go. What matters is who we go with. 

There was a time in her past I did know, though, and very well. The time she spent battling drug addiction. She would bound into a room, eyes wildly dancing, unable to sit still. I could smell it on her, and knew what she had been getting into. She knew I never judged her, never thought less of her, and that’s what she needed at the time. It was daily for a stretch, then she was able to manage with just every other day. It was a slow cutting back, sometimes reverting to daily though when temptation overcame her. But in the end, she was able to make it through a day, a week, a month, then more without needing the high. She replaced it with other things like bird watching. I encouraged that in her, even began to enjoy it myself when we would spend time together. Any time with her was magical. She was the one soul that completed me, made me feel alive, made me see the blue in the sky and the green in the grass. The world was sprinkled with glitter when she was near. I was content. I was me, when I was with her. 

But now she was on borrowed time. She was hiding her illness, not wanting anything done for her in what was her inevitable end. I saw her stop eating as much when we would have dinner. A few bites, a bit of water, and she was done. She became thinner, and moved more slowly. I moved slowly with her. The light that was once in her eyes was fading. But not the light in her soul. It made my chest hurt to see her like this. It made me sad, and angry, and I felt like I was underwater trying to breathe but unable to get air. But I kept all this to myself. It was my silent pain, my solitary confinement of feelings. I knew she didn’t want pity, or sadness, so I tried to look at it like her next adventure. Her adventure to whatever awaits when we leave here. I knew I would never find another friend like her. She was uniquely Lily. She would always have half my heart as her own. There would never be another to fill that space. I knew that. 

I leaned my head closer, into hers. She leaned back against me, and we sat for what felt like ages and seconds at the same time. I loved her soft warmth, the way she smelled. I thought about how much fuller my life had been with her in it. I thought about how lucky I was to have had that in my life, when I knew not everyone has been as fortunate. 

And then she was gone. 

She left the world as she lived in it, on her own terms. She wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, I knew that about her. I was still looking out the window, and a bird landed on the sill, looking in on us, as we had looked out on it so often. He flew away, and I thought maybe Lily was flying away too, up to the heavens. The breaking in me paused for a moment as I thought of Lily being free from pain now. 

Now. I would have to go on without her. I couldn’t help but think about my own end, when would it come? How would it come? It didn’t help to dwell on such uncertainties. 

I put my paw on hers, and licked her head, one last time in goodbye.