Lost Paws

I arose from my slumber, allowing the early daylight to enter my bedroom through the crevices and spaces in the slats of my blinds. The dust collecting on my windowsill resembles the beach a block down from my house in which the moisture droplets from the humid spring mists of Miami resemble the sea.

“Maddie, feed Benji and then take him on a walk please!” my mom ordered.

“Mom, why can’t you do it? I’m busy right now!”

“Maddie, you said you would take care of Benji when we adopted him. So go brush your teeth and take Benji on a walk,” Mom responded.

“Okay, fine,” I groaned.

I fluffed out all the ruffles in my weighted blanket and straightened out the creases in my pillow. The chewed-up fabric of my fluffy, pink carpet which gave me blisters under my feet created peaks in the folds that brought design to the floor makeup in my room in which some peaks were smaller than others. Some peaks were drier, without any fur atop its steep slope, and some with damp drool as couples of waterfalls converged at a common pool below. The brown, hardwood floors reflect the outline of my ceiling fan and the desk lamp on my bedside table.

The door creaks open, “Maddie don’t forget to take your medication after you brush your teeth!” Mom reminds me.

“Do I have to take it? Didn’t my therapist say my depression got better!” I reply.

“It doesn’t matter, you still have to take your medication just in case your depression comes back!”

“Okay fine! Jeez mom!”

I quickly jog over to my bathroom where I hear Benji’s footsteps across the floor, moving toward me. I swing open the door labeled Maddie with a paw sticker stuck on it. Benji slips in through the small opening between the door and frame. I reach for my toothbrush and apply toothpaste on its bristles.

I walk over to my bedside table and pick up an orange container labeled, “Fluphenazine.” I press and twist the white cap open and reach for a pill. I snap a pill in half and pop it in my mouth, then gulp it down with a glass of water. Benji leaves the bathroom as my mom pours dog food into his red bowl. I brush out my hair and pick out a white top, blue jeans, and a red varsity jacket for school. I grab Benji’s leash from my desk hook it onto his collar and go on a quick jog.

Pre-summer breezes send my hair in a brisk wave - backward. The flaps of my zip-up fly back along with clumps of curled hair. The grown-back green leaves, and falling blossoms set a canvas scene in which the mild gusts of wind produced by the fast slow, and medium paces of cars rushing to work or dropping their kids off at school. I pass by my old middle school and quickly turn back for a quick jog back home as I get a glance at my school bus 5 blocks from my house.

I reach for my door and ring the doorbell, eagerly waiting for Mom to answer the door as the bus approaches the house. She opens the door. I rush past the door and hand Benji’s leash to Mom, grab my pre-packed bag, and find a granola bar for breakfast as I rush out the door. I run up the steps of my school bus and find an empty seat where I can finish the last episode of a TV show.

I open my locker, running past the weekly high school fight between two football boys fighting over a girl, and finding my seat in first period. The clammer of freshmen students running to class and upperclassmen laughing at them humbled the sounds of rap music leaving the big speakers kids brought to school to anger the custodians and science teachers. The bell rings and teachers enter their classrooms. My English teacher, Ms. Williams walks into the class as all the students begin to enter their actual seats and turn off their loudspeakers.

The PA system goes off in our classroom during a lesson about mood in poetry.

“Ms. Williams, can I have Maddie at the office, her mom is here to pick her up!”

In confusion, I stuffed all my stuff in my backpack and stormed out the door in a rush. I found my mom in the office. Her nose and eyes were red and swollen with smudged mascara. Tears made their way down the tip of her nose and curved at her cheeks, all meeting at the wet collar of her pink, oversized shirt.

I fill out the sign-out sheet with my mom and walk out the two glass doors. Scared, and concerned, I asked my mom what was wrong.

“Mom, are you okay? What happened?”

No answer.

“Mom! Did something happen?”, I insisted as I felt a soreness in the back of my throat with mucus slowly escaping my nose. Still no answer.

“Mom! Please tell me what’s wrong! ” I pleaded. I stare at my mom, looking for an answer in her eyes. As she parks in the driveway of our house, I unbuckle my seatbelt and ring the doorbell multiple times expecting I would hear Benji barking at the door.

Nothing.

I grab the keys from my mom’s purse as she slowly walks up the driveway. I quickly open the door. I find Benji lying on the couch. I rush over to him, shake him frantically, and hope he will wake up.

I fall to my knees, and suddenly, I’m at a funeral for the dog I’ve had since I was five years old.

The mid-day Thursday rain rustled the leaves of surrounding trees. The leaves of nearby trees part from their trees, just as Benji’s soul has parted from his body. His home. Me, he left me. The clouds blanketed the sun’s warmth and comfort. The children playing out on the streets quickly ran inside and as I saw Benji being buried 6 feet under, it felt like my childhood memories, it felt like I had been buried 8 feet underground. As Benji had trotted his way up to heaven, my soul did the same, tried to follow him up - past the clouds. But, I can’t – only the dead can follow him up to heaven, if only I was among the dead.

As flowers were placed atop the fresh cement of his gravestone, my hands shook, the unheard, powerful vibrations leaving the realms of hell accumulated in my ankles and shins. I felt the demons of the depression, Benji helped me leave behind, coming back, kicking me from the back – face forward. I feel myself dragging myself toward Benji, to the flowers laid on his grave. I reach for a newborn daisy which grows in the space between Benji’s grave and a clear plot, across.

The car ride home from the burial at our friend’s farm was the first car ride home without Benji eagerly waiting for me at the front door. I heard my mom sniffling in the passenger seat while my dad stayed silent, trying not to give in to his emotions. The silence is so loud, that the lights of our new Mercedes flicker as levels of panic arise in my head. The small hills and grass fields of rural Miami resemble the landscape of the floors in my room built from the rugged carpet I got for my birthday and Benji chewed up as a puppy. The dents in the fields which collected pools of rainwater through runoff trails imitate the mini waterfalls of drool, dampening and darkening the pink fur of the carpet bulging from the side of my twin bed.

The picture of me holding Benji as a puppy, framed and positioned at an angle toward my bed comes to life as we pull up into the driveway, in front of the white garage door. In front of the white, garage door I see a wide smile with chocolate ice cream everywhere. A hyper five-year-old Maddie trying to contain the loud energy of one five-month-old Benji trying to lick the residue of chocolate on her nose. A five-year-old trying to live, with a diagnosis of depression due to the death of her sixteen-year-old sister. A five-year-old is introduced to the idea of suicide at the young age of three. A five-year-old is forced to understand the consequences of a drug overdose.

stepped out of the car as my parents sludged out of their seats, slowly unbuckling their seatbelts. Struggling to keep the joints and tender tendons intact as they feel the need to let gravity bring my knees down to the ground, like shackles for the upper leg. Shackles which force the strongest of men to obey the orders of gravity. The benevolent touch of leaves brushing up against the frizzy hairs of my mother’s chartreuse and black buttoned jacket emboldened the frown upon her face. The side corners of my father’s mouth struggled to find their way up as it forced a fake smile.

I hold the daisy with the highest regard of safety and slowly open the fence gate as I shuffle down the gravel pathway to the backyard. As the fence gate pushes into the premises of our backyard, I trip over Benji’s favorite giraffe stuffed animal and pick it up, dusting off the dried mud from its fur. I walked to the vegetable garden where Benji took mud baths and planted the flower under a tomato vine. I place the giraffe by the wood structure, filled with wet mud and compost. I pour water around the stem of the daisy from the cement birdbath and slowly make my way inside.

As the glass backyard door slides open, I see the flickering lights of unchanged light bulbs blend with the sounds of loud, pattering rain. The bells from Christmas hung on the doorstep rang as Mom swung the door open. She stops at the door frame, looking over the doormat and Benji’s water bowl filled to the top.

I go up the stairs and to the right, to my room, an empty one, clean, no slippery slobber all over the floors or a chewed-up bone. I look at the alarm clock reading 12:49 as I close the door behind me. I walk to my bed, take off my jacket, and place it on the edge of my pillow. I turn over the covers of my blanket and snuggle within its warmth, adjusting my pillow with my palm under it. I close my eyes. And complete silence ushers within the walls of my room.

I turn to the other side of the bed as Mom slowly creaks the door open, holding a wet, panda stuffed animal with the eye bitten off. She walks toward my bed as I slowly push the covers over the upper parts of my leg and get up. She sits on the edge of my bed, facing my way.

“Remember when we first got Benji at the animal shelter? We got this toy for him before going to the shelter. It was raining so heavily that day and when you picked Benji from his kennel, he took the bear from my hand.”, Mom inhales.

“Yes Mom, I remember. He chewed out its eye in seconds and got drool all over my arm.” I laugh.

I wish we could go back to that day, that day when I first felt Benji’s thick fur brush up against my arm and his uncut nails scratched my skin. But I didn’t care because Benji was mine and I was his.