Moving On from Death

By Carter James

September 7, 2014. That was the day that our second dog, a little chihuahua named Yoda, was introduced to our family. We were hanging out at my aunt’s pool with some relatives, when one of our relatives came to the pool with a dog that she found on the road. My family decided that we would be the ones to take care of him. The first thing we did was give him a name, and we ended up choosing the name “Yoda”, named such because of his pointy ears. Once he was fixed and dewormed, he was now able to live freely at our house.

Let me tell you something about Yoda: That dog was pretty mean and weird yet entertaining. He barked a lot and he bit ankles. He would always shake during rainy days, and he would sleep under the blanket, which we called his “rat’s nest”. Despite all that, we still loved that little demon. Every year, we had a tradition of putting silly hats on him, usually a sombrero, and taking a picture of it. No matter what, he, along with our other dog Lenny whom we’ve had for a long time, was like family to us.

March 13, 2021. That was the day he died. On that morning, while he was outside, he was attacked by a runaway german shepherd. My mom took him to the vet, and I was hoping the operation would be successful, but then I got the news. The vet said that Yoda was paralyzed now, and we had two options: put him in a wheelchair or euthanize him. We unfortunately had no choice but to choose the latter. My mom witnessed it at the vet, but I was outside because I didn’t want to watch it, but I knew what was happening anyway. We were sad about it, but we still had to move on from it.

Death can be a hard thing to move on from. To most people, losing a pet may not seem as sad as losing a loved one or a close friend, but it is sad to the people who were close to that pet. In fact, my family has lost family members over the years, before and after I was born. However, at some point, when the time is right, you have to move on from the past and look forward to the future, no matter what happened in that past.