Saying Goodbye to My Best Friend

It’s been a minute. Last year, I had my website designed professionally for the first time. It did not go as planned, but bygones and all that. Everyone’s heart was in the right place. Several well-researched blog posts disappeared during that whole process, and honestly, I just lost my mojo. It felt impossible to manage a website build and stick to a writing schedule because I was unsure if posting would work. Then, the site became a broken mess, and I didn’t want to direct anyone’s attention to it.

At the beginning of this year, I was finally in the right headspace to tackle it again, and now I have someone helping me unravel all the backend issues. It’s not perfect yet, so please pardon any weirdness you encounter.

---

As I ease back into writing, I wish I had a lighter update to share first. It feels awkward to jump right back in with sad news, but it would feel equally strange to write as if it didn’t happen and then come back to it.

Our beautiful Millie died March 29, 2025. It isn’t easy to express how much she meant to me. She was my shadow, and she loved me more than I deserved sometimes. I know for some people, dogs are just dogs. For others, dogs are children. I fall somewhere on that spectrum.

We were Millie’s second owners. She came to us when her first owner’s life circumstances changed. At nearly a year old, I expected a dog full of energy, ready to leave a path of destruction in her wake. What we got was the sweetest, most docile, and steady girl. Nothing fazed her. She embraced kid chaos, lightning storms, and old house projects. She quickly attached to me and rarely left my side.

The only hint of mischievousness was her unresolved pica. It drove her to eat a ridiculous amount of paper and soap during her lifespan. We learned to keep baby gates on the kitchen and bathroom doors. My son, an origami artist, kept a constant vigil on his projects because Millie did not have discerning taste. Toilet paper rolls or intricately folded paper sculptures looked the same through her eyes.

Natural food seekers, labs do get into trouble from time to time, and Millie was no different. We nearly lost her in 2016 when she jumped into a contractor’s truck and ate a package of rat poison. We didn’t find out until an hour or two after she ingested it. Shockingly, she pulled through that, but in 2018 and 2019, she nearly succumbed to another bout of “What did she eat?” followed by a serious infection following a runaway hot spot. The whole family became meticulous about keeping her safe from herself, gently pulling things out of her mouth and regularly stashing potential poisons out of reach.

The truth of the matter was that she was so good, so healthy, so strong, almost all of the time, but when she got hurt or sick, it always went south very, very quickly. That was especially true of her last day.

Just a few days prior, she had been enjoying slow daily walks and throwing her rubber toy up in the air in a solo game of fetch. We had been walking in the nearby state park when a jogger came up behind us and asked, “How old is she?” When I replied “thirteen,” she told me she had a fifteen-year-old lab snoozing at home. My heart felt a hopeful bubble of happiness at the same time Millie’s back left leg did its little collapsing thing that had been getting worse for the past six months.

On her big day, the end of her time with us, it was clear that thirteen years, three months, and eleven days were all we were getting. The vet (human angel!) came to our house to end her suffering, and Millie died with her head resting on my leg and my arms around her—small comfort for all of the joy and strength she offered us through the years.

I had her cremated, and we’ll be spreading her ashes here at Blake Hill House. If future owners ever feel a ghostly presence… lucky them—it’s just Millie, still keeping an eye on things.

We miss you so much, Millie, aka Lady Underfoot, Millicent Gertrude, Best Dog in the World.