My best friend is dead, and other stories
When he was barely a year old, Balto ran away for the first time. I was living with a friend from college, and we came home to discover that he’d somehow scaled our block wall and escaped into the neighborhood.
I searched tirelessly for him, leaving work early every day to check the animal shelters in the area. I clung to the hope that he was alive and that I would see him again, even as it grew less and less plausible.
After six days, I received an alert through an email service for stray dogs. The shelter had found a dog that matched Balto’s description. I remember carefully scanning the cages, then stopping in my tracks when I heard his shrill, ridiculous howling. If you’ve ever heard a husky talk, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, here’s a video of Balto freaking out after losing his ball:
When I came to his cage, he wailed and tried to pull me in with his paws. It was the most relieving, impossible feeling to have found him. I brought him home that day and swore to never let him out of my sight.
Balto was a Siberian husky I raised from a puppy. He was named after the famous sled dog who helped run medicine to a tiny town in Alaska. As a kid, I loved the animated movie of the same name. I’d never dreamed of having a husky of my own.
He was stubborn and wildly intelligent – a combination that made for some really strange habits. One day I came home and found that he had taken scraps of paper out of the trash and sorted them into a little pile in the yard. No matter how much I trained him, or how many miles we ran, his physical and mental energy could never be depleted.
He had a low howl that sounded similar to a cow mooing. If you gave him a certain side-eyed look, you could irritate him enough to moo on command. This made him a huge hit at parties.
When I furminated him, the strands of brown, white and gray fur were enough to fill two or three trash bags.
On rainy days, he would shoot outside through his doggy door, dig holes, and clean off his muddy coat on my bed.
He disappeared the second time in spring 2013. At that time, I had moved back in with my parents. I was working too much and earning too little, and desperately searching for something to anchor my life. The only part of the day that I looked forward to was coming home to the crazy dog who would practically tackle me in the doorway.
On one particular weekend, I became extremely sick. I let Balto into my parents yard and checked all the gates to make sure they were shut. Our typical routine was to let him run around in the yard for five minutes or so, then to open the door and let him back in.
That day, I let him out, went inside and collapsed on the couch with the intention of going back for him in a minute or two. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I knew it had been much longer. I rushed out the front door and called for him. I searched the yard, my heart pounding in my chest. I remember the dread that rushed through my body. I remember the realization that whatever happened next was my fault. There is no worse feeling.
I got in my car, and I did not have to drive very far.
The moments between me being behind the wheel, and me kneeling on the side of the road are a blur. First came a profound emptiness. Then the pieces clicked into place. Balto’s clock had just stopped.
I felt a strange sense of non-presence. Like seeing him there on the side of the road plucked me out of space and time for just a moment, and made me feel how small and sad and stupid I was. I’m not sure how long I was there, but I remember that several cars drove by – a live audience for the tragedy. I felt I needed to be somewhere else, so I picked Balto up, opened the car door, and rested him on the seat.
That’s when I began to cry. I remembered that he was only two years old. He’d hardly lived. I remembered picking him out from the litter. I remembered the veterinarian’s quiet astonishment when I showed him all of Balto’s tricks. I remembered him running full tilt in my parents’ field, enamored with the open space.
I parked the car at home. It was difficult to walk, or even stand up straight. I had the intense feeling that I needed to act. He was gone – I knew that – but this wasn’t over. I went to the garage and found a shovel.
I chose a spot beneath a sprawling eucalyptus tree in my parents’ backyard. When it’s quiet, you can hear the wind brush through the leaves with a soft rattle. Digging the grave was harder than I imagined. After a while, my palm split open. My sleeve was soaked in snot and tears.
My dad came home and saw me digging. I don’t think he knew what to say. I didn’t either. It felt like there were moments where I wasn’t there at all.
When I carried Balto from the car, his body was completely stiff. It was like he’d transitioned from a being to an object. Rigor mortis was one of those side effects of death that I’d always known but conveniently ignored. Now I knew it intimately.
I broke down again when I put the first bit of dirt over him. That might have been the hardest part. Moments ago, he was a living thing. A soul. A creature. Now he was a body. Something to be disposed of.
I told barely anyone about Balto’s death. I wouldn’t have told anyone if that was possible. While I know many people suspected that something had happened, I wasn’t ready to say it. It has been several years and I’m only putting this on paper now.
I’m not religious, so the hardest part for me is not knowing where he went. Where he is. I suppose that’s what makes death special. It’s bigger than us. Who knows, maybe it’s another journey.
I’d been writing a book before he died, and after he died, the effect was so profound that I couldn’t keep it out of my stories. I think it was my way of trying to cope and understand. As Neil Gaiman put it: “The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.”
I wrote a story about a kid who leaves earth on a spaceship shortly after his dog is killed. The self-driving cars of the kid’s world didn’t stop after the dog was hit, just like the world didn’t stop churning after I lost my closest friend.
Despite the awful circumstances, this has reminded me of the most special part of being a writer. Our most creative, compelling stories are often borne from unfortunate events. Everything that happens to you, good or bad, becomes a notch in your belt – another part of your story.
Tragedy is hard to comprehend. It feels unbearable. But the strange and empowering truth is that it can be made into something that brings wonder and empathy – like a story that helps someone escape just when they need it most.