She Was There

She came to me in my lowest.

I was getting sober. Navigating the aftermath of an abusive marriage. Trying to find my footing inside a life that had been systematically dismantled — by circumstances, by other people, and honestly, by me. I was not, in that season, someone who was very good at taking care of anything. Years of abuse and trauma had finally caught up. I was white-knuckling most days.

And then there was Penny.

She didn’t judge me. She didn’t hurt me. She just listened. She stayed close on the days I couldn’t explain and didn’t try to. She held my deepest secrets, the ones I’ve never said out loud to another human being, and she carried them without ever once making me feel small for having them.

She showed me how to be patient. How to be attentive. How to be responsible for something outside of myself when I was still learning how to be responsible for myself. She reminded me how to love — not just her, but me.

I’ve been sober for twelve years. She was there for all of it.

Penny Lane saw thirteen national parks. She swam in Resurrection Bay in Seward, Alaska. She swam in the Pacific. The Atlantic. The Gulf of Mexico. She hiked mountains. She was an excellent canoe partner — when she wasn’t launching herself overboard to swim.

She rode on the back of my four-wheeler for years. She had a seat. It was hers.

She shit in every body of water she ever came across. Every. Single. One. She was scared of most things and absolutely fearless about this one specific thing.

She hated moose. Especially when they were in her yard.

Once, when we were stationed in Florida, someone who didn’t live there walked into our apartment. A stranger. Penny’s response was immediate and unambiguous: she greeted them with full enthusiasm, tail going, ready to make a friend. Thankfully, it was a friendly accident. She was, in this one respect, a terrible guard dog and an excellent example of how to meet the world.

She was there through the TDYs, when my active duty husband’s schedule made the days long and the nights longer. She was there when I walked across the stage for my Associate’s degree. Then my Bachelor’s. Then my Master’s.

She helped raise my children. She loved them with the same patience she gave me. She was so tolerant — of the noise, the chaos, the years of us figuring out who we were as a family.

She held me while I cried. A lot. And she was there for the best parts too. Every single milestone, she was somewhere nearby.

She won’t be here for my Doctorate.

She won’t be there for my future Sober Birthdays — the ones that feel like the most honest celebration I know. She won’t see my kids get married, or have children of their own. And I don’t know why, but that’s the part that hurts the most. The milestones she carried me toward, and won’t get to see.

I can’t bring myself to put her toys away. I haven’t washed her blankets. I’ve genuinely never mourned this deeply, and I’ve mourned some things.

What will life look like without her? I don’t have an answer. I have her lessons. I have twelve years of sobriety she helped build, brick by brick, without ever knowing that’s what she was doing. I have the version of myself she called forward — patient, attentive, capable of love — and I’m going to have to trust that version to keep going.

Penny Lane.

She came to me when I needed her most, and she stayed for everything that came after. She swam in every ocean. She hated the moose. She loved us without condition, limit, or agenda — the way only dogs know how.

I miss her. I will miss her for a long time.

Thank you, my girl. For all of it.