The day after Christmas, when I unwrapped Santa’s gifts, little one-year-old Jenny toddled into my Build-a-Bear bed, which was totally meant for all my Beanie Babies. But she looked adorable in it. Her white fur blended in with the white plush and contrasted against the yellow pawprints on blue fabric. Like a tiny polar bear.
And then she peed in it.
Ain’t my bed anymore.
When Jenny grew to be a smaller-than-average West Highland White Terrier, the Build-a-Bear bed became the designated area for her toys. We left it in the corner by the back door, sometimes hearing a squeak, sometimes watching her rip padding out of a 24 inch Jumbo Loofah Terry Dog. On nice spring days, we’d grab a red geometric rubber ball and toss it across the backyard, laughing at how fast she sprinted, how quickly she wore out after six rounds.
Her new bed sat in the left corner of our front door, and her pastel plaid blanket scrunched up beneath her kicks. She looked out the window for us.
“No one’s there!” we’d shout after she barked.
She slept around. The couch, when she was still able to jump. Our parents’ closet, tucked in a pile of fallen clothes. Her crate in my mother’s office, all smooshed along the plastic sides. My own bed, though she urinated six out of ten times. When we went on vacations, she slept alone.
“Her bed’s kind of gross,” I observed to my mother. Jenny’s head leaned over the edge, her eyes closed. She didn’t look young anymore.
“She tracks in so much mud. We want to cut her nails but she won’t let us do it.”
“Doesn’t she deserve a new bed? She’s had this one for years.”
“Go pick one out, then.”
PetSmart had an oval-shaped, eucalyptus green bed slightly bigger than her fluctuating frame. She had fleas that summer. Constant baths stressed her out. Her dish consistently had kibbles left behind, sometimes scrambled eggs or our dinner’s protein barely pecked at.
I presented Jenny with her new mattress. She stared at me. That’s it? You put up a fight for something new to sleep in all fucking day and this is what you got me? She waddled over the ledge, spun around, and plopped. Okay. Okay. I’ll deal with this. Ahhhhhh.
My mother says we have to put her down.
“She cried at 3 this morning for an hour. She walks into things and feels lost. It isn’t fair to her to let her keep going on like this. It’s selfish for us. So we’re going to let her go.”
I remember the little bed in the back corner of the house. How small she used to be, how small she still is. The runt of her litter of two sisters and a brother. Always getting in our way in the kitchen, always sniffing through the grass, always pacing in the living room, always scooting along the couch to dry off from a bath. She’s so small.
My parents Facetime me before they take her to the vet. The night before, I couldn’t stop crying when I thought about her sitting in her bed by the front door, waiting for us to come home. We’d always have to gently swing the door open since she’d pressed her nose into the wood. If she was napping when we left, we put a treat in her bed and said, “Bye, Jenny, see you in a little bit.”
We’ll never come home to her again.
I weep as soon as I see her blindly stumble along the outline of the couch toward her bed. I can’t say her name. My mother tries to console me, but nothing helps. I can only imagine my parents’ final car ride to the vet, where they had gone for years before for checkups and flea treatments, medicine for infected ears, answers on Jenny’s anxiety of us leaving her alone for long periods of time. Though she paced in the backseat whenever we took her to Grandma’s house, I envision Jenny squirming in my mother’s lap in the passenger seat, knowing she’s going to her least favorite place. I can already vicariously feel tears soaking her fur.
Jenny settles down, a leg propped outside the ledge. “That doesn’t look comfortable.”
“She doesn’t have the energy anymore.”
My mother puts the phone to her nearly deaf ear and I can barely tell her I love her.
At 3:17 PM, my mother sends a picture of Jenny in her bed, a blue bandage wrapped around the same leg that struggled to keep her standing. Her wavy fur four months away from a haircut, her eyes six months away from fifteen years. Her pastel blanket rumpled beneath the body I couldn’t hold one more time. I was afraid she’d pass on a cold vet’s table, but she was warm. She was small and warm.
