Goodbye Barma

I have trouble speaking my words, but writing them has always come easily to me.

And oh, I need to write. I need to get this out, the only way I can right now.

Im sorry, but my baby is gone and I am suffocating.

It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon. It’s been so cold lately, I was so happy for the sun.

I woke up with Barma under the blankets at the end of my bed, hes so fluffy and warm and sometimes he licks my toes. I look to the end of my bed and whisper “Barma’ and he pops his little head up out of the blankets and looks at me for a full ten seconds before flopping his head back down and sighing. 

Myrtle (the name I gave that damn black fog in my head) has been very loud, very loud lately. I had spent most of Saturday morning crying in my bed for no good reason, just because I was so full to the brim with those devastating feelings that had no face or form I could discern. No rhyme or reason. Barma wiggled his way to the top of my bed and he'd lick my tears and I'd laugh because it was hella gross, but that would kick me out of my moods.

It was cold this morning though, so I put on his sheep skin jacket. It was his favourite. And he just looked so damn cute in it.

Alisha stayed home because she wasn’t feeling well and I was glad because Barma wouldn’t be alone. He hated being alone. Didn't stop him from trying to follow me out the door though, like he always does.

We went to church, and it was a good day. I was proud of myself for making it through the day, because it was well worth it. We were late getting home though. I keep thinking had we got home a little sooner, maybe we would have found him before ...

He wasn’t there when we got home. He didn't greet us at the door in an excited haze like he usually did. But this wasn’t unusual, he had this weird super power to somehow escape the back yard. I built the fence higher, I plugged the holes and put tin where he tried to dig. But somehow he’d get out. His separation anxiety was a violent thing. But he only tried to get out when he was alone though so Im still confused why he left when someone was still home.

We went for a drive to find him and we couldn't, and a little panic set in, deep in my belly. After checking all the usual places we finally checked home again and I checked my phone. I had a missed call.

The missed call was from a lady, she said she had Barma and then what she said next stopped my heart. He’d been hit by a car. She was bringing him home. I tried to call her to find out how bad he was, find out where she was. Because I knew if I could just get to him it would be okay. We got through things he and I. We always did.

We got home, I could see Mums silhouette in the window rocking Barma back and forth. Dad greeted us at the door.

‘He came home?’ I said

Dad shook his head.

‘How bad is he?’

Dad shook his head again.

‘Worse’ was all he said.

‘How can he be worse? ‘ I said

‘Hes dead Bek. Hes gone. That lady just found his body and brought him home.’

It was like being hit by a train.

I ... I don't have enough of the right words... I am always so full of words but right now they abandon me. I don't cry proper, I'm not the kind of person who screams or shouts or explodes in any way. I’m very implosive kind of person which is largely to blame for the appearance of Myrtle. But its like those words held the power to make me suddenly combust and combust I did. Dad was choking out I'm sorry and I think he tried to hug me but all that existed was my boy, and me and this terrible, terrible sound.
If I could just get to him it would be okay. I could fix him. We'd get through this . We always did.

Mum was cradling him and I started noticing the world enough to realise the horrible screeching and wailing was coming from me. I felt like I was going to be sick and my vision tunnelled when I saw him there. I clung to him, he was still warm and soft, his eyes were wide open and it looked like he was awake. But it was wrong, he wasn’t awake. And I could hear myself unleashing that awful sound again. I called for him to come back. I couldn't stop myself. It's like I was watching from outside of me, watching me on the ground, rocking my lost boy, screaming. I remember being scared of me, from that weird disconnected vantage point. I remember shouting at Dad to 'Bring him back! Bless him! Bring him back!'. And then I started to pray and pray and pray. I could do it, I can bring him back. And I willed it over and over, because he looked so alive still, he was still warm, his heart couldn't have been stopped for very long, I was certain his life was still within my grasp and I willed every power I had to pull him back, to come back, and I was raving over and over 'bring him back, bring him back'. I was making bargains with Heavenly Father, "use my faith" I said. "GIVE HIM BACK".

Somewhere in the midst of everything crumbling, a loving small voice said he wasn’t supposed to come back. His time was up and he was where he needed to be. His work was over.

I was too far gone to do anything but scream back at it.

You killed him! You killed him! You took my boy from me!
And I was lost. I don't remember what happened, just that time must have passed because the colors were different when I came back and Myrtle was there to greet me.

She whispered that it was my fault. "If you had of tied him up or checked the fences more carefully, if you had of walked with him more, if you had got home sooner, if you had gotten him desexed sooner none of this would have happened. You killed him. You did this. He is dead because of you, you lazy selfish stupid..." and on she went.

And part of me still believes that. Part of me knows I could have prevented this had I been more diligent.

The other, larger part of me knows that most of this was out of my control and that Barma did this, he had something broken in him that no one could fix, and he made his choice and that no matter what Myrtle said to me, there was nothing I, or anyone could have done.

Fury held hands with my shocked grief and I was mad at the people who killed him and left him there to die on the road.

Eventually, my explosion turned inward and the agony raged inside instead of outside. That awful sound I was making stopped and everything went quiet. I stopped praying because I knew he was gone and HF wasn’t giving him back. I turned my back on heaven in my pain.
I lay beside Barma on the floor, just stroking his fur and smelling his smell and pretending like it was just us napping on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But I like to be doing things when I feel out of control. So I changed and got his things ready. I wrapped him in his blanket just as he started to go cold and we walked out through our sunny green yard to Chucks grave. Dad and Jonny had dug a hole next to Chuckie. I let Dad put him in the earth, because I knew I wouldn’t get back up again if I did it. I was floored. I was floating between feeling and not feeling, letting tears and stray sobs form in fits and bursts. I had no words, yet was so full of them but I had no energy or will to say them. We put him to rest with his favourite toys.

Part of me still wants to rush back up there because I swear he's still alive if I had just prayed harder or made Dad bless him he'd come back. I feel like I buried him alive, because he looked no different, just like sleeping, but his eyes were wide open. We couldn't close them.

Its been half an hour since then, but I just had to write. I had to do something because if I stop the grief is so overpowering. I've had loss before, and I know what its like. This isn’t new to me. Yet is is, because he was mine and I was his. He saved me and whenever I was blessed enough to imagine a future for myself he was in it. I imagined him being there at my wedding and I was halfway finished with making him a tux. (I liked to make him costumes because he was so damn cute). He would be an old dog once I had my own babies and he would watch over them. No matter where I tried to imagine myself he was always there. It was us against the world and I knew no matter where I would go in this life, if he was with me the darkness wouldn’t take me. My light in the darkness, the beacon in the storm.

That dog saved my life. In my darkest hour he was there to pull me back from the brink. He was who God put in place to stop me destroying myself because he knew me and knew that no person could. Barma loved me unconditionally, didn’t punish me for my mistakes and flaws. He didn't see me as different or sick or broken.

Barma came into our family before we were ready for him. We were mourning Chuckie still and he came too soon. He peed everywhere haha and was a source of both happiness and contention in my family. 

However, to me, he came at just the right time and I didn’t even know it. He was Leia’s dog, but she was still hurting too much from Chuckie's sudden departure and Barma was so different from Chuckie, alot more to handle for a little guy, and we didnt know what we were doing, didn't know about socialisation and that getting given him at such a young age was too soon to be away from his Mum and brothers and sisters. He developed terrible anxieties and 'cheeky' is a kind way to put some of his behaviours developed as a result of being taken from his family too soon. So his first few months of life were messed up and rocky. We didn't get along so well in the beginning, I was too messed up to do much of anything. Then he was hit by a car when he was four months old (trust me the irony of his death is not lost on me) accidentally by carelessness on our part and the carelessness of the driver in our driveway and he had a broken leg as a result. I remember coming home to everyone shouting at each other, I dont know where I was before that, but i remember coming home and just seeing him, his big eyes, wet from the rain, looking up at me and it was the first thing that kind of kicked me out of my head. Ive never spoken to my parents like that, I shouted at them in fact, telling them to stop going around in circles with blame and that Barma needed help. He needed an operation and his recovery took a while. Everyone had school and stuff except me, the insane one, so it was just me and him alot of the time after that. And that's where we made our bond. I'd sit by his basket while he lay there with his broken leg before and after surgery. And then he'd sit with me at sleep at my feet when I was up late painting.

I fixed the damaged that had been done to him in his heart and made him a better pet. At the same time he fixed me. He was always there and I felt braver and more wanted and needed than anywhere else when he was with me. When night terrors, panic attacks and insomnia hours plagued me he was always there when I woke up and he would soothe my fears and bring me back to reality. He was ever patient with my recovery. When Id want to hurt myself he'd get in my way so it was impossible to do so. I'd be mad in my pain at first but eventually I'd end up laughing at him and I don't know how many times he saved me.

Recently, we just taught him to dance. We would jump up and down around him and he'd hop up and down on his back legs and pump his front paws in the air. He was incredibly smart, smartest dog I've ever met. We never deserved him. He was even smarter than us at times.

The amount of adventures we had on the endless days I spent alone and sad kept me going. He was so full of light he kept mine burning.

I don’t know why this happened now. I don’t know why I wasn’t allowed to see him grow old as my life progressed and eventually give him back to HF after he'd lived a long and happy life. I don’t know why he was taken from me.

I don’t know what to do now in the days that will follow. I've lost a part of me that gave me so much life and now I feel like its been torn away and I'm in darkness still looking for him.

This is not fair. This is not okay.

I don’t know when it will, if ever, be okay. I don’t know how to let him go and move on from this.

This isn’t real.

This isn’t real.

Barma saved me. 

I don’t know how ... I don't know whats going to happen. Whats going to happen to me? Come back. I cant do this without him. My world has lost a light. I don’t know what to do. Give him back. He's my baby, my heart and soul, my rock. What am I without him?

I know hes running happily somewhere, with wind in his hair, and earth below his feet like he loves.
I just wish it were here.