07/10/2026
The day I’ve been dreading for the past 14 years finally happened. I had to say goodbye to my little best friend.
Sawyer was not an ordinary dog. My friends always said he had human eyes. His idea of the perfect day was simply being wherever I was. He spent his life following me from room to room, taking naps wherever I was, preferably on my lap. If I got up to go to the bathroom, he got up too. He’d lay on my lap with his head on my arm while I edited for hours and hours. He slept pressed against my legs every single night for 14 years. He was my little shadow.
He was my first big adult purchase when I was 20 years old. He got me through my divorce, comforted me while learning to live alone, and so many hard days. He was there when I met Brad, when I became a mom, through a miscarriage, countless middle-of-the-night feedings, and every chapter in between. He’d lay on my stomach and just be there and wait out whatever it was with me. There wasn’t a single night I walked across the hall to a crying baby that Sawyer wasn’t following behind me, waiting to go back to bed together.
Somewhere along the way, my camera roll slowly filled with pictures of my human babies instead of my fur baby. Looking back now, I wish I had taken more pictures of him, gotten him in a family photo, and spent more time loving on him the past few years. But as I looked through my pictures this week, I realized he was still there in almost all of them—a blurry little spot in the background, licking baby toes, following my kids as they crawled and took their first steps, always close by. He never stopped being my shadow.
On his last day, I finally stopped everything else. I laid beside him, held him for hours, and didn’t leave his side. I wanted to give him the one thing he had spent his whole life asking for—to simply be with me. He never left my side, and I’m grateful I could be there for him until the very end.
Our home feels way too quiet without the jingle of his collar or the little body that was always at my feet. I keep catching myself looking down so I don’t trip over him, checking his spot in the baby’s room, and reaching for him beside my legs at night. I miss you buddy 🤍
