One of the saddest moments of my life was when I lost my dog Lucy. She was thirteen and had been with my parents since before they were married.

I remember the morning she left. My Mom woke me up early and we wandered around the neighborhood yelling “Lucy”. At first I wasn’t worried and I thought she would come home or someone would find her and give her back. But as time went on and we started putting up signs, I started to worry. She didn’t have her collar on and she was a sick dog. Nobody found her. I hope that if she died she died peacefully. I still hope to this day she will be found and she will come home. I miss her so much. If I could have one wish it would be to bring her back. She was so well behaved and she never bit me. She never ate my toys or pooped in the house. She use to go hike with us but she got old and couldn’t do it anymore. I think the last time she hiked with us was my ninth birthday party when I had three of my friends over for a sleep over and climbed Lily Mountain the next morning. Lucy came on the hike with us and almost got closed in a luggage compartment on the floor of the van we rented. There is a picture of my three friends and I on the top with Lucy’s butt in the corner.

Now that Lucy is gone my parents put together a photo album with pictures of her in it. There are even pictures of her when she was a puppy. My parents found Lucy on their first date together. She was a stray puppy that was found under a juniper bush. My mom took her in and cared for her. She was like an older sibling to me and is my favorite dog even though she is gone. She was more than just a pet she was a member of the family. The things that still bother me today is the fact that I never got to say good bye and I will most likely never see her again and I will never know what happened to her.