When we adopted Darcy I was not in a good place. I was deeply depressed. I was anxious. My life was stagnate. He helped lift me. He was my constant. This little dog barely left my side. For whatever reason he chose me to follow. He saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.

Darcy was adopted from a shelter. My sister and I convinced our Mum to let us get another dog after seeing one advertised in the local newspaper. That particular dog was taken but instead my Mum and sister came home with Darcy.

He wasn’t a young dog, middle aged you might say and he had lived a sad life. He was surrendered to the shelter by an elderly couple that didn’t or couldn’t look after him and later surrendered again by a young couple that didn’t want him. I think it had to do with the fact he had severe allergies. He would be fine and then suddenly it would hit and he would scratch and bite for days on end. He suffered so much but he was so brave. As frustrating as this biting and scratching could be I could never of loved him any less.

Darcy slept on my bed. He sat with me and kept me company when I was sad. He made life bearable. I could hug his soft furry body, this little Shih-Tzu, with a playful nature and forget for even a brief moment my troubles. Darcy would look up at me like I was someone important, just stare up watching my every move, it would melt my heart.

When I moved out it broke me to leave him with my parents. I did. I regret it more now than ever. I feel like I deserted him. He loved me so much. If I could go back to that time I would never have done. I would have convinced my Mother to let me take him. I would have found a rental property that let me have dogs. I guess I had no concept of how little time I really had left with him.

One day he started limping. It seemed to start from nowhere. We thought he had arthritis, he was getting old after all. The vet agreed. However, not long after that diagnosis my Mum found a lump. He had a scan and it was cancer. Fucking cancer. It was an aggressive form. The vet discussed removing his leg. Mum didn’t want this because he was already old and small she didn’t think he could be mobile after the operation. Nor did she want him to have chemotherapy and have his quality of life ruined. She made her choice. My instinct was to do anything and everything but it was not my choice to make.

Darcy became less active over time but he still loved food more than ever. He would even try and play with my sister’s dog Dexter as he had always done. Up until the last time I saw him he wanted to play with his stuffed toy and eat as much as he could. He had grown tired one could see and could not get around so well but I did not expect that he would not be there on my return two weeks later.

Darcy was put down, euthanased, whatever. There were reasons I am sure. I know it is selfish to want to keep something/someone alive because you cannot let go. However, I am not a noble person. I do not want to feel loss or pain. I do not want to experience separation. I want to have my dog, alive. If you could feel my despair when I realised he was missing… well you could only then fully understand what this dog meant to me.

In honour of Darcy, I hope you can find it in your heart to adopt your next pet. Why not give your home and your love to an animal that needs it? Don’t support puppy mills and backyard breeders. Support those animals that are abandoned and need a home.

Farewell Darcy. I love you. I miss you.

You want to know what gut wrenching misery feels like? Wait until you feel the loss of someone/something you love. For those that have experienced it, you know this is a feeling that will not simply dissipate with a bottle of rum. It takes years. Years of well practiced abolition of painful memories. Sometimes the only way to move forward is to forget. But how do you bring yourself to forget something you love? Time too can make the burden lighter. However, past loss will simply be replaced with the punishing nature of fresh absence and gut wrenching anxiety. Anxiety that will ooze from the crevasses of your broken heart. You will feel things you never felt possible and you will feel them again and again because love lost is punishing. It is so punishing it can break even the strongest of us. What hope is there for the weak? Where do we turn?

Currently, I cannot help but cast my mind forward. I keep thinking about the torture that awaits me. Will I be able to withstand hit after hit? I don’t know that I want to.

When catching up with Pop we could always depend on him for a story about his great passions in life those being his time spent serving in the Royal Australian Navy followed by his later role as a Court Officer at the Supreme Court of NSW. Amazingly, Pop could always work a story about an aircraft or naval vessel into any conversation. A talent unmatched! He had a great amount of knowledge on the subject. His personal library in those particular areas is vast.

His other love was the law. Pop absolutely adored its processes and rituals. He not only sat in on the cases as was required but he immersed himself in them. He would later recount details at family gatherings to whomever would listen. The love he had of his work was obvious. If only we could all feel such passion in our own careers.

Pop was known amongst the judges at the Supreme Court for the sketches he did which he was proud. He would sit there often during a proceeding and sketch portraits of the judges. He even impressed a judge or two who sourced their own copies of his work for their personal collections. I remember too seeing beautiful landscapes he sketched of Brisbane Water and its surrounds and as a child having him encourage Felicity and I to practice drawing them ourselves. I am lucky to have a sketch that he drew of a much younger me which I will treasure always.

My Pop had a work ethic which was unbelievable. This comes with doing what you love. He worked full time into his 70s until finally he relented and cut back his hours but still he continued to commute over an hour back and forth to Sydney on the train. An activity that challenges even the youngest person. Retirement was something that was forced upon him by necessity. It was not something he did voluntarily. How can one not admire such obvious commitment and passion to his work?

On school holidays, Pop would often plan outings for us as children to visit his beloved Court House or such places as the Art Gallery of NSW. As children we may not have always known how to appreciate such cultural activities but now as I look back I can say we were both lucky to have spent that one-on-one time with him and to share in a small part of what he loved.

Pop too was always the joker. He was the master of the inappropriate comment. On the very last day that I saw him in hospital he made a remark to his nurse that he once had a nurse that would check his temperature by kissing him on the forehead as if to hint she should do that too. It was so marvellous to be able to share a laugh with my Pop. He lifted the sombre mood so effortlessly. His clarity of mind in a body that was failing him just floored me.

To my Pop – I love you. You’ve lead an amazing life, the layers of which are so complex and varied I could never do them justice. I am proud to call you my grandfather and you will live on in my very being always and forever for I am as much a Davis as I am a Morgan. All my love forever.

I would reunite loved ones and allow them one last embrace, a kiss and a whispered word of love.