I slowly opened my heavy eyelids and sat on the side of my bed with my heart in my stomach and tears in my eyes waiting to run down my face. Today was the day. I sluggishly got up and walked over to my closet with a ball and chain latched onto both ankles. It felt like it took ten years to take ten steps to gather my clothes for the day. I picked out black sweatpants and a black crew neck and headed down the hallway with my sweats to my bathroom. I walk in, set my picked-out clothes on the toilet seat, close the door, and walk over to the mirror. As I'm looking in the mirror, I don't see my 15-year-old self, I see my 10-year-old self, not knowing anything but the love she has for the dog she had been growing up with since she was a year old. I snap back to reality and I see my 15-year-old self with tears running down her face. I take a deep breath and try to prepare myself for what the day has planned for me. I took a shower, changed my clothes, and sat down to eat my breakfast, but I had no appetite. How could I eat today? How could I do anything today? I had two bites of my cereal and a sip of water. I walked over to my kitchen and lowered my dishes into the sink. I step back into the dining room, look left, and see Callie lying ever so peacefully on the little memory foam bed we made for her. I walked over to her and spent some last bit of quality time with her before it was time to leave.

An hour or so passes, it’s time. My dad brings Callie to the car on a leash and my brother and I follow and we get in the back with her. As I’m sitting in the back seat, time slows. It felt like a 6-hour road trip just to drive down the road to the animal hospital. Callie always loved car rides and always got excited. Even though she could barely walk, she was still trying to look out the front window to see the cars passing. She wasn’t panting like she normally did, but there was a slight happy wag of her tail as her head sat between the driver and passenger seat as my brother was gently petting the fluffy fur coat that always kept her warm in the wintertime. I look up out the window, we’re here. I see the animal hospital inch closer and closer as we approach. We turn into the parking lot and find a spot. In her last moments on Earth, we let her roam around the patch of grass next to the parking lot as my dad held her on a leash. Her nose sniffed the fresh air a few more times then she turned to my mom, brother, and I, all sitting in the car with the doors open, admiring her enjoying nature. She took all her strength to stumble toward us with a smile on her face. Time didn’t just slow down at that moment, it stopped. Seeing her walk toward me in the parking lot is an image ingrained in my mind. A veterinarian came out and called us over saying she was ready. We walk into the room, there's a mat on the floor, a basket of blankets, a couch, and pillows. So comforting, yet so depressing. My parents and brother sit down on the couch while I lay next to Callie’s head. After they do the preparation, they inject her with the euthanasia medication through an IV injection. I’m lying there on the floor, on my stomach with my head in my arm and the other caressing Callie’s forehead and cheek. With tears flowing from my eyes like a peaceful waterfall as she was gradually being taken away from me minute by minute, second by second, it felt as though hours upon hours had passed. I will never forget staying by her side in her last moments, never wanting to forget the smell or touch of her fur, never wanting to forget her and the neverending joy, company, and laughs she gave my family over the last 14 years. I then hear the voice of my grieving mother telling me it’s time to go, but what I really hear is her telling me it’s time to walk out of that room, leaving the dog that loved to play in the snow in the winter, the dog that loved to jump in the leaf pile in the fall, the dog that loved to bask in the sun in the spring, the dog that loved to take naps by the vent to cool off in the summer, the dog I grew up with since I was only a year old that I couldn’t imagine life without. I wanted to refuse to leave because how could I go home and go to school the next day and pretend like I didn’t just lose my best friend? I eventually stood up, my body felt numb, but my heart felt tense and my face was tired. I push myself into my mom’s comforting hug and bury my face in her shoulder as my arms stretch around. I feel her arms wrap tightly around me and she starts to lead me out of the room trying to keep my head from turning back and I didn’t turn my head. That is until I stepped out of the room and fully turned around, seeing the lifeless body of my dog that was once so full of life, my Callie, my pretty girl disappearing behind a gray door.

Less than a week later, I remembered a picture on my sister and I’s bedroom wall that she had taken in 2016 of Callie. I took the Polaroid and I bought a clear phone case. I placed the Polaroid in my phone case so she would always be with me. Even a year and a half later, I still have a clear phone case with a Polaroid picture of my precious girl inside. I will always have a clear phone case and I will always have her picture looking at me through my case just as she looked at me through the window of my house when I would leave or come home. I see her face every day and I’m reminded of her and the long, happy life she lived every time I pick up or even look at my phone. She was the dog that made me learn to love dogs and not be scared of them, she was the dog that tried to eat my cupcake when I was little and was successful, she was the dog that was always annoyed, yet so patient, by all the kittens and puppies we fostered throughout the years, she was the first dog I loved, she was my dog.