I texted my grandparents wondering how this could happen to her and what caused it to. When she answered The palms of my hands started to sweat, my body started to quiver.  I read as sadness starts to spill in my mind,  I try to pull myself together thinking I can not cry about  this cause it happens in life and besides your mom and family would be watching you sobb your eyes out! As hard as I wanted to cry I did not instead a shooting pain hit my heart while I read that last word. Cancer

I remember when My Grandmother and Grandfather got their dog Sweetpea about twelve years ago when I was one and my older sister was two. Although we have lost a lot of memory at that age we were told that Sweetpea was attached to us and our grandparents told us that we treated Sweetpea like she was our own dog. We would sleep with her whenever we stayed with our Grandparents, feed her, bathe her, and take really good care of her. She would run around the field chasing after us, help build snowman’s during the winter time. In the summer our Grandparents decided to move to North Carolina with Sweetpea and their house was only a couple minutes away from the beach. When we heard this news we were sad because we would not be able to see them as often as we did but we knew that we would visit them sometimes. We flew to North Carolina every now and then to spent the night with our Grandparents for a couple of days with Sweetpea. We kept doing this for a while until they got Laynee. Laynee was our mom's dog that we could not take care of because  She kept scratching the couches when babysitting kids were around and doing her business all over the house so we gave her to our great Grandparents. Our great Grandparents took really good  care of her then they started to lose their memory and it caused them to forget to feed laynee so she became extremely overweight. Our Grandmother and Grandpa decided to take her in then and when they did, Laynee lost a lot of weight over the couple of months although it meant we weren’t able to visit often because their house was packed. We were still happy that Laynee was in great hands and getting better. When our Grandparents brought laynee to the house Sweet pea was not used to her at first but then she started to like her because she finally had another friend to play with

The leaves were falling softly and swiftly to the patches of grass, the air was cool but warm at the same time to create a perfect temperature, birds flew by pleasantly while their eyes watched and observed people walking along the sidewalks. It was a beautiful spring break and so far it has been so good. I got to sleep in without waking up at 6am in the morning, we got to go outside and do some gymnastics in the backyard, I did not have to worry about getting schoolwork done because their was none for me to do so I thought that nothing good go wrong on a beautiful day like this. While sitting on the couch, listening to music, watching, and texting friends about how there spring break was going and if they want to hang out then put my phone down for a second to go get a glass of water. When i got back my mom started to talk to me about something then changed the subject to something. Else that i did not want to hear “ your grandparents dog Sweetpea got put down today.” I was in shock and had no idea what to say so instead I just picked up my phone and started to ask my grandmother questions about why Sweetpea got put down and the cause of it. When she answered The palms of my hand started to sweat, my body started to quiver. I texted my grandparents wondering how this could happen to her and what caused it to. When she answered The palms of my hands started to sweat, my body started to quiver.  I read as sadness starts to spill in my mind,  I try to pull myself together thinking I can not cry about  this cause it happens in life and besides your mom and family would be watching you sobb your eyes out! As hard as I wanted to cry I did not instead a shooting pain hit my heart while I read that last word. Cancer, Sweet Pea the dog that I have loved and known for my whole life had been put down due to Cutaneous Lymphoma. This is a cancer where dogs get lumps and bumps on their body. Sweetpea had lumps and bumps under her skin and in her mouth so it was not visible to the human eye. It was hard to progress what was going on and I was thinking about how did this cause her to die? but I knew that cancer is a deathly word.

I went straight to my room and grabbed a pillow to cry on. I cried until I could not cry anymore and then thought about how much I missed her. I started to think of happy memories like when we met them at the beach and I was looking for seashells while sweetpea ran after me, I thought of a time where we went camping near a campground and while we were making smores Sweetpea would just be playing, and I thought about every night that we were with our Grandparents. Sweetpea would curl up in a ball next to us and we would pet her until it was time to go to bed. Sweetpea would stay there on that bed and act like she was trying to protect us from any harm that would come. She would always have energy to run around the yard or go on a bike trail, She would always play with any ball that we throw and sometimes she wont even let go of it. Sweetpea had the best caretakers in the world and all her love went for them and us. She was happy that laynee was finally her friend she could run around and play with even though she only got a little bit of time to spend with her. Sweetpea was never lazy and always wanted to get up and the times that she could not she was just sad and slept until she could. Laynee lost her best friend to play with although she did not know it yet. Sweet pea was the best dog ever and I thought how could we let her go?

It was the next day and my Grandma sent me a text saying Sweetpea had been cremated. I could almost smell the ashes from far away or hear the burning sound. It tore my Heart but then my Grandma said that they got a paw print of her paw which made me extremely happy. We had something to remind us of Sweetpea so she would never be forgotten and we had something to bond with again when we go to heaven with her. 

After Sweetpea died we then got a new golden retriever named Nellie but she could never replace Sweetpea. she will be Sweet Peas sister and  If I ever feel down about losing sweetpea I will just always think about That paw print. That paw print that reminded me about how lucky I am to have a good life and amazing people in it, that pawprint that showed all my strengths and no flaws, that paw print that showed love for the dogs that were sitting beside Sweetpea up in heaven, and that pawprint that showed Sweetpea was watching over us keeping Nellie and our family safe. we would be half of a heart and sweetpea would be the other. When we come together we will make a whole.