The Lion's Pride Volume 10 (Spring 2018) | Page 33

comforting me in a way only he could do. As I lay down to sleep that
night death cradled me, holding me in his warm embrace.
The years following, death wasn’t around much. It took two years
before he finally came back to take my old dog Snowy with him. When I
walked Snowy to the car before she was taken to the vet to be
euthanized, I didn’t cry; I just said goodbye and kissed her face sweetly
as I had done a million times before. Death reassured me that it was fine
that she was going to die; Snowy was old and been hiding under the
shed waiting for death to take her naturally. My whole family was in
tears of losing our childhood dog, but in my head I was okay with it. She
was spoiled for 13 years when she stopped eating, then was surrounded
by my sister and parents when she passed; she wasn’t going to miss
anything. Her time was up.
After Snowy died, death gave me the cold shoulder; no pets or family
members passed. That’s when my fear and uneasiness started. It was a
strange progression into these feelings, as though the older I became the
more I felt like Death was toying with me. Three, then seven years
passed with nothing but life; he was hiding from me but I desperately
wanted to know where he was and what he was going to do. I was scared
he would take someone from me with no warning and I would be alone
to mourn.
When I turned 14, I started showing signs of what I now know was
suicidal depression. I constantly dreamt of fading into black, pure non-