When I was younger, I used to think that everything had a happy ending, that things always worked out, that anything and everything was possible, and never was it more apparent that I was wrong than when my dog, Bruno, had to be put down when I was 9. It was that day that I realized life wasn’t always as fair and enjoyable as I originally believed, and that I was going to have to deal with loss for my whole life.

I had Bruno since I was just 3, but I can still remember him from even way back then as a friendly, energetic dog that could never stay still and could never be quiet. Seemingly all he ever wanted to do was to horse around and play, only ever stopping to eat, drink and sleep at night when the rest of the house finally went quiet. Over the years, we did everything with Bruno by our side. We took long walks and drives, played in the snow, and sometimes he would even hop onto one of our beds and sleep beside us through the night. I never wanted to see him go. I wanted to have years and years of spending time with him. But, unfortunately for us and him, that's not how life works. In August of 2011, my worst nightmare would come to pass.

After all this time of having him, we noticed that he was slowing down. He suddenly wouldn’t eat or drink, and he wasn’t always running around and barking like he used to. Naturally, my family and I started to get worried for him, so we brought him to an animal hospital nearby. He stayed there for a couple of nights and the news we received, or at least my parents received, wasn’t pretty. Bruno had developed a malignant tumor, and it had been there for a while without us ever noticing. Obviously, our parents didn’t know how to break the news to me and my brother, and so for a while they didn’t. They kept quiet about it and each and every question we asked earned one of two responses. Either an “I don’t know,” or “it’s nothing you two have to worry about.” I was concerned, of course, but I believed that in the end he was going to turn out fine. And I was wrong. Very, very wrong. Just a few weeks later our parents finally decided to tell us that Bruno was beyond help, and that we could either let him live and suffer for another month or two or have him put down. Me and my brother felt we had no choice in the matter at that point, so we gave no objections to having him euthanized, despite wishing that there was something that could have been done.

I never, up until that point, thought that loss was supposed to be a part of childhood. No one ever told me, and that's because my parents thought that it would be better for us to figure it out ourselves and learn how to cope with such losses without their help, and I used to be angry at them for that. “The one time they leave me alone,” I thought, “and they decided to do it now of all times?” How could they possibly, in good conscience, do that to me? That’s what I used to think, but now that been given more time to think about it,  I feel grateful for what they decided to do, because I don’t have to feel the same way that I felt over Bruno ever again. Not because I don't care, of course, but because I learned how to cope with it efficiently and without needing help from those around me. Despite the fact that he is no longer with me, I won't ever forget about Bruno and the lesson he taught me even through passing away.