nose prints

I have two prints of his nose. 

The first is hanging on my wall. It’s smudgy and messy from an ink pad designed for taking impressions of baby feet. It’s nestled safely in a green frame from HomeGoods. 

The other is perfectly outlined, barely smudged, and bright pink from paint. It is face down on the table. 

He hated when things touched his nose. It made him so uncomfortable. It made it impossible for me to snatch a good memory of him. 

I have an impression from life and from death.

I cannot look at the pink impression for too long or I start to well-up again. The pain is still fresh in those moments. The tight knot in my chest slowly strangling me and stealing my breath. 

But, the nose on my wall I stare at all the time. Its imperfections resemble life. They resemble who I knew. 

I’ve read poems and quotes about grief. How it is love persisting and it doesn’t get smaller you just get bigger and yada yada yada. I know all about grief. I’ve ridden this rollercoaster before. I still wake up crying when my pup Pickles shows up in my dreams. 

But what about the guilt? 

The crippling guilt that comes with the loss of a pet. 

I did the best I could. We took the best care of him. He was beyond beloved. 

But guilt grips my heart. 

I didn’t spend enough time. I didn’t do enough. I left. 

My mom always says he perked up the most when he heard my voice. Which is such an amazing sentiment and comforting thing to hear, but all I can think about is if he wondered where my voice went when it’d been a while. Did he think I’d just disappeared into the house and ignored him? Did he think I didn’t care except for a few days a year? Did he know that I didn’t abandon him? 

For an outside pet, there is no concept of away. I feel like the inside dogs always understand that we leave in the car and come back after a period of time. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes very short. But an outside pet, everything that isn’t in his yard is away.

Buddy the Pig and I met in the early fall of 2007. I had just left a birthday party and my mom stopped to let me pick out my pig. I fell in love with him, a black and white piggy who was very chill compared to his brothers and sisters. He was my dream come true. I’d always wanted a pig. 

He was an inside pig for a few years until he started to get into too much trouble and he was moved outside. First, into the covered breezeway that used to separate the house from the garage. He slept in an Igloo doghouse that I would squeeze in alongside him. We’d snuggle and I’d sing him songs until he honked calmly. (He always loved Safe and Sound from the Hunger Games Soundtrack.) 

Then he moved to being free range around the property, then a cozy pig pen made just for him, and finally, he lived in a nice yard behind the house that was all for him. He had a lovely bush cave that, like a dragon, he protected with all his might. 

We grew together. And like most kids, I had eras where I was super involved in his life and eras where I had a lot going on and would see him when I could. I still thought of him every day even if I didn’t go see him. 

Then I went to college. 

Everything changed when I went to college. Buddy was safely an old man at that point. Well surpassing the years we’d predicted for him. With him being so old, it made every goodbye all that much more tearful because there was always the fear he wouldn’t be there when I returned. It haunted me. I’d cry and call and stare at videos and make my parents update me on how he was doing. 

I worried about him. Not just his health. But what he thought of me. Did he think I went into the house and stopped caring about him? He didn’t know where I was. He didn’t know I was in New York trying to get my bachelor’s degree. He didn’t know why I stopped seeing him. Why I stopped singing to him.

During Covid, I was able to sing to him again, but time pulled me away. To LA and back to New York. 

When I visited, I whispered to him everything that was going on in my life. I told him where I lived and what it was like there. I told him about how much I missed him, and how much I sang now. I shared new songs with him (and old favorites). I told him everything hoping and praying he’d understand where I was. 

The last time I saw him was in April of this year. I forgot to say goodbye the morning that I left for the airport. It was so early. It was so dark. 

I’d spent so much time during the trip sitting with him and scratching behind his ears. I took multiple impressions of his nose. He hated it. He got so mad we were touching his nose, but I wanted this memory of him in life. I wanted to remember his hatred for the feeling even for a fleeting second. But, I forgot to say goodbye. 

I had hope I would make it back before. I hoped there would be another chance. It wasn’t the end because I didn’t say goodbye. 

My mom called to tell me he passed the first weekend of September. It was nearly a perfect 17 years from him arriving at home. I sobbed the whole way home from a friend’s house. He passed peacefully on his own time. 

I felt grief, but I felt crippling guilt. It was my fault. I stopped singing to him. I stopped sitting and scratching his belly and behind his ears. I stopped picking off the clumps of dirt from his skin. I stopped helping him shed his hair. I stopped. I left. I moved on. 

And he waited. 

I got a letter two weeks later from my parents with the new print of his nose and his baby picture. The print was perfect. It captured every nook and cranny, but it felt soulless. I knew it was taken after. I knew the only way to get that perfect of an impression of his sensitive and tender nose was to do it when he couldn’t fight. When his breath had stopped. 

It made me sick to my stomach. It made me sob. It made me feel like I was being choked. 

I failed him. I left. 

Does the guilt of leaving your childhood pet for your adult life ever go away?

He was in a good situation. My parents took excellent care of him and loved him so deeply. My dad bought him a massive swamp cooler to help him cope with the Fresno summers. He had everything he could ever need. 

But I feel guilty. 

Does it ever end? 

The guilt that grips my consciousness. The sadness in my skull. The screaming as I close my eyes to sleep. The thought of him begging to the pig God that I would make an appearance one last time and sing Safe and Sound to him in his final days. The feeling that if I were there it would’ve been more peaceful, more comfortable, more loving. 

I’ll never see him again. 

I’ll never get to say goodbye. 

All I have left are pictures, memories, and two impressions of his nose.