British TV personality Sue Perkins had a deep bond with her dog Pickle, a Beagle. Pickle was her best friend and her support system for over 11 years. But then, the pup was diagnosed with cancer. Sue made the agonizing decision to have her beloved dog put to sleep.
“Yes, I know. I know you had no idea, because I had been practicing for weeks how to keep it from you, and how, when that time came, I could stop my chest from bursting with the fear and horror and unbearable, unbearable pain of it all.
I came in and did what I’ve done so many days and nights over so many months and years. I lay behind you, left arm wrapped round your battle-scarred chest and whispered into your ear, ‘I love you.'”
As a beautiful tribute to the love they shared, Sue penned an open letter to Pickle and posted it on social media. She opens the letter with the above paragraph. It captures the pain of knowing you must part with your best friend.
She goes on to say:
“I cried until my skin felt burnt and my ears grew tired from the sound of it all.”
She makes it clear that the letter is not a eulogy. In fact, she retains her humor and fondly remembers all of the shenanigans her pup got into over the years.
“You crunched every CD cover in the house for fun. You chewed through electrical cable and telephone wires.
As an adult you graduated to raiding fridges and picnics, you stole ice cream from the mouths of infants, you jumped onto Christmas tables laden with pudding and cake and blithely walked through them all, inhaling everything in your wake. You puked on everything decent I ever owned.”
Sue also expresses her anger that it was weeks before she discovered that Pickle was ill and that her desperate attempts to save her failed.
” But I thought I could save you. I really thought I could. I didn’t ever believe that something as alive as you could ever succumb to something as ordinary as death. After all, how could you be sick, when you ran and jumped and played, day after day after day.”
But there was a moment when she knew that this couldn’t continue.
“And then, I got it. You were doing it all for me. You were dragging yourself into the light, every morning, for me. All of it. For me. And as fierce and possessive as my love was, I couldn’t let you do that anymore.”
Despite the desperation of loss, Sue still fondly looks back at her cherished Pickle with humor.
“ou were the engine of my life, the metronome of my day. You set the pulse and everything and everyone moved to it. What a skill. I woke to your gentle scratch on the door. (it wasn’t gentle, it was horrific and you have destroyed every door in every house we have lived in – I am just trying to make you sound nice).”
She closed her letter by thanking Pickle for always supporting her and with a beautiful description of her love for her dog.
“My love for you fills those spaces that words can’t get to.”
You can read the entire letter here.
h/t Mirror.
