A Small Love of Mine

For Duey

Madelyn Valento

In December, my family had to put down my childhood dog.

He’d been with us for 15 years. My parents called him my brother, and I always said he was their favorite child. His name was Duey. 

I’m lucky to not have experienced much loss in my life, but that just makes each one hit even harder. What do you do when you lose someone who's been in your life since you were seven?

I didn’t realize until looking back at videos from years ago how old Duey had gotten. In 2020, when everyone was home, I’d take him through different drive-thrus to get a pup cup nearly every day. I have countless pictures of him smiling in the passenger seat next to me. He loved to chase a ball through our yard and stop to sniff every little thing on our walks. In the past year, all of that ceased, and most of the pictures of him turned into cute shots of him sleeping. 

Not only did he take up all the ground space in my family’s living room with his two beds, blankets, and toys, but he also occupied all of the extra love in our hearts. He was our uniter, a constant presence under the dinner table begging for food, snuggling up to us the moment it was bedtime. 

It never occurred to me that I’d have to live without him, but as of today it’s been a little over a month. Tomorrow, my family is going to check out a rescue dog. In a way, it feels like cheating, but we’ve always had a dog—there was one before Duey, and now there will be one after. We have a lot of love to give, and I know how much we can learn from a canine friend.