Alex was my best friend.  Alex was my most trusted secret holder.  Alex was my safe place.  Alex was my dog of eight years.  Mutual, unconditional love is what we experienced during those eight years.  I always assumed that that love would last many more years; I was so wrong.

As an eighth grader it’s easy to be naive due to the euphoric world that has been provided to by parents.  When a disaster occurs it is also easy for it to feel like the entire universe is imploding.  It is also hard for an eighth grader to understand why life happens the way that it does.  I had had Alex since I was a six year old.  The ebony and ivory border collie had been my best friend for nearly half of my life.  We experienced most of our lives hand and paw, and I had always thought that we would have plenty more adventures.  One of my favorite adventures is after swimming on a crisp early spring morning, her rolling around my mom's landscaping.  Or the watching her sprint in circles when she would get the least bit excited.  Towards the end of my eight grade year and leading up to our class trip to Washington D.C. in May, my best friend became very sick.  She was a middle aged dog, so when she started experiencing these seizures at the end of that April, I just assumed that it was because of the sweltering heat.  Once again I had allowed my naivety to blind me.  I determined that the best way to solve this problem was just to make sure that she drank more clear, cool water than she already was.  I even went as far as to build her an extra canopy in the yard to give her more sheltering shade.  However, when my best friend kept having these seizures I knew something was wrong.  My parents, however, still just thought that it was because of the heat and were hesitant to bring her to the vet.  The seizures started happening less and the overwhelming weight of reality that was on my chest commenced to be relieved.  However, that enormous weight of reality would all come crashing down on top of me once again.

Three days before we were set to depart for our nation's capitol, Alex went missing.  I had been keeping an extremely close eye on her because of her recent seizure episodes.  When she suddenly went missing, I was launched into an all out panic.  I sprinted outside screaming, “Alex!  Alex!” as loud as I could hoping that she could hear me and would return to me.  Suddenly, I heard whimpering and knew instantly that it was her.  I sprinted into the immensely green woods following the whimper of my dog and discovered her lying in a patch of thick green grass.  I became on the fringe of being in all out disarray thinking, Oh my god she is going to die.  I was only barely able to keep calm enough to handle the situation.  I scooped her up like a firefighter and ran all the way back to the house.  As I placed her on the porch, it was obvious to me that something was wrong; she usually would have recovered by now.  I called my parents telling them, “Alex, needs to go to the vet right now!” and they rushed home as quickly as they could.

  As soon as they arrived we loaded up into my father's truck and drove to the nearest vet.  I lay in the back of the truck with her telling her, “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.  I promise everything is going to be okay.”  As soon as we arrived, I carried her inside, and they went to work trying to save my best friend of eight years.  It was discovered that she had pancreatitis.  The vet approached me and saying, “Honey, Alex is going to have to stay with us for a while until she gets better.”  The day before we departed for Washington would be the last time I would ever see my best friend. 

As I layed there on the floor with my sweet sickly dog I couldn’t help but sob.  I was petrified of losing my best friend of eight years.  I knew it was going to happen though.  I was castaway in the vast ocean of reality, and she was like my lifeboat of sweet innocence.  I hugged her and prayed, Please, please let her be okay.  My last memory of being with her is laying there on the cold concrete floor of the vet’s office.  She was too weak to even lift her head.  I told her, “I love you, Alex.  I can’t wait to see you when I get home.”  I told my parents, “Do not to tell me anything while I’m there.  I don’t want to know anything until I get home.  I need to enjoy this trip.”  After a week in D.C., I came home.  As I stepped off the bus, I saw my parents standing there, but Alex was not with them.  I knew instantly that she was gone.  However, after a sleepless busride home I was too tired to comprehend this.  After I awoke, I walked down the steps and asked my parents, “Where is she buried?”  They told me she was buried behind the house where in the spot where the trees parted and she would lay and bask in the sun on warm, sunny summer days.  I went out to her and sat and cried for at least an hour.  I just couldn’t believe she was gone.  After everything we had been through she was just taken away from me.  I built her a cross the next day and stuck it in the ground with her collar fastened too it.  To this day I miss her.  I will never love a dog as much as I loved her.  If there is a lesson to be learned from this it is life isn’t the perfect world parents try to create for their children.  Life is a vast, dark ocean of reality, and we are all just castaways trying our hardest to stay afloat.  However, it is the moments in life such as the ones that I shared with Alex that make it easier to ride out the waves.