Yesterday, my oldest friend passed away.

She did not walk on two legs, nor did she speak. She didn’t have to. She had four paws, a perpetually wet nose, and a big heart. She was more than a four year old could ever ask for.

The day we brought Emmy home, she had her shaggy black hair tied up with a pink bow. She stood solemnly in her large crate in the back of our car, her dark chocolate eyes regarding us sheepishly. I poked my finger between the slats. She pressed her cold, wet nose against it, and I shrieked.

It was the beginning of an abiding friendship.

Emmy was around for my first day of kindergarten all the way through to my first day of senior year. She’s been around for scathing arguments and lingering hugs, family gatherings and quiet evenings alone.

She’s seen Thanksgivings and Passovers and barbeques and all the random parties in between. She has seen tears at the loss of my grandfather and joy at the reunion of my family.

She has seen robbery and fear, police flashlights in dark rooms. She was the only valuable we couldn’t replace. Thankfully, we never had to.

She has seen every weepy, unbecoming tantrum and taken quiet action as only a best friend would, by shuffling those heavy paws across the floorboards to nudge her head under my arm and make sure I didn’t ever have to cry alone.

She was the loud “woof” I always knew I’d come home to, the “woof” that let me know the house was safe.

“Was” is such an unfortunate word. Only yesterday, Emmy was still an “is.”

I hugged my oldest friend for the last time yesterday, not truly understanding the magnitude or finality of such an instant. She no longer wore the jet black fur nor the bright pink bow we’d brought her home with. She was weathered and gray and creaky and purblind. When she staggered to her feet to be led out the door for the last time, I held my breath. I listened to those heavy paws shamble across the floorboards for the final time, watched her tail disappear through the door frame for good.

If there is one thing I can’t stop thinking now that she’s gone, it is that I wish I had hugged her a few more times. I wish I’d paid more attention to her like I used to back when she and I were little, still puppies on uncoordinated legs, sniffing our world and learning how to get back up when we fell.

Death is confusing and frustrating and incomprehensible, but the worst thing about it is that it takes the people we love away from us. And it does so, quite often, without warning.

I intend to make my hugs last longer and my smiles more sincere. I intend to tell my closest friends (the two-legged ones) how much I love them, because best friends don’t come around often.

I’ll never get another Emmy. But she’ll always be my oldest friend.