No More BoBo, My Babies Gone💔💔
I didn’t think I could get any lower.
I’ve been walking through hell on splintered feet for a long time now, dragging what’s left of myself behind me like dead weight.
And just when I thought there was nothing left to take—
just when I thought I’d already paid the price ten times over—
life came for the last good thing I had.
My Bobo is gone.
And I don’t even know how to grieve it properly.
I think I’m crying out of reflex more than heartbreak, because I can’t feel anything past this hollow.
It’s like my heart finally just... gave up.
He wasn’t like other dogs.
He didn’t beg for attention or demand affection. He gave me space, but he never left.
He just knew.
Knew when I needed him.
Knew when to be still.
Knew when to press his big dumb head into me like, “I’m here, Ma. I got you.”
He wasn’t smart—God, no.
But that was part of the charm.
That stupid, floppy-eared, permanently confused face that made it impossible not to smile even when the world was collapsing around me.
He was massive—big enough to knock a grown man down—but he never figured that out.
Scared of car rides, always trying to climb into my lap like he was still a tiny puppy, trembling but trusting me to keep him safe.
And those nights, early on, when he was just a little thing, sleeping on my pillow right next to my head—he never really stopped trying to do that.
Even when he hit 200 pounds.
He was a freight train with a mission when he wanted something.
Hell, the bastard chewed through two goddamn walls and a door to get to Daisy when we tried to separate them.
Twice.
Knocked her up both times like the determined tank of chaos he was.
But even in his wrecking-ball glory, he never turned that force against me. Never.
He protected me.
From people.
From pain.
From the dark.
When Jonny walked in the door, you'd think heaven itself cracked open for him.
He remembered. Always.
Even if they were apart for months, the second he saw my son, his whole world lit up.
He was just as much his dog as he was mine.
And when I broke down—when I shattered into pieces no one else even noticed—Bobo did.
He’d come sit with me. Press up against me.
Not needing to be pet. Not needing anything.
Just there.
When Chad and I fought, he’d get between us. Closer to Chad, like he was saying,
“Watch it, bro. You don’t wanna push your luck with my momma.”
When we walked outside, he kept people at a distance. Everyone.
Didn’t matter if it was a kid or some old lady—if you came too close, Bobo said nope.
He knew I wasn’t the social kind, and he became my wall.
About a year ago, I saw it start.
That subtle shift—he was walking different, slower.
The light behind those goofy eyes was dimming.
And I knew.
I didn’t want to, but I fucking knew.
So I started pulling away from everything.
Started drinking more, trying to bury the fear in liquor, hoping I could black out through the part where I lost him.
But I didn’t black out.
I woke up.
And now he’s gone.
And I don’t have a damn clue what to do with that.
No more Bobo sighing like a grumpy old man when he's bored.
No more barking at invisible demons like he was yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
No more watching him roll around like an idiot, trying to cuddle the kittens or protect the babies like they were his.
No more watching him sit like a knight guarding the last broken piece of me.
No more Bobo.
And now it’s just me.
Alone in the silence he used to fill.
Not just with noise.
With love.
With knowing.
He wasn’t my dog.
He was a piece of me they ripped away.
And I don’t know how to live without him.
He died today.
And I wasn’t even looking.
I was in the same house.
Same room.
So close I could’ve reached out.
But I didn’t.
Because I was distracted by everything else that’s wrong in my life.
While all of that shit was stealing my attention,
Bobo—my baby—was dying.
Right next to me.
And I didn’t even know it.
By the time I went to touch him, to love on him before a smoke—
I knew.
I didn’t even have to reach him to feel it.
That strange, awful stillness in the air.
The kind of silence that screams.
So I sat outside and stared at him on the camera.
I couldn’t go to him.
I couldn’t make myself see it with my own eyes.
I didn’t want to believe I missed it. That I let him go alone.
I texted Chad:
“I think Bo is dead.”
Then there was just... silence.
The kind of silence that eats seconds like minutes.
It felt like I was sitting in eternity waiting to find out if my baby was really gone.
And then finally—
the text I wish I never had to see.
“I’m sorry baby.”
And I crumbled to the ground.
I don’t even get to grieve.
I don’t get a day in bed.
I don’t get to sit in the dark and scream and snot and curl into a ball and cry like the mother of a lost child.
Because responsibilities don’t pause for heartbreak.
The animals still need feeding.
The house still needs cleaning.
The fights still need navigating.
The parenting, the partner-ing, the pretending to be okay—it all keeps coming.
And I’m just done.
I’m so fucking mad at myself.
Because I should’ve held him.
Should’ve curled up on that bed with him, whispered “I love you” into his stupid floppy ears, played Animal Planet and let him hear the sounds of life instead of slipping into death alone.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t notice.
Because I was too buried in everything that doesn’t matter compared to him.
I failed him.
And now I don’t even get to say goodbye.
And here’s the part nobody’s hearing—
I don’t want to be comforted.
I don’t want someone to tell me “it’s not your fault” or “he went peacefully” or “he’s not in pain anymore.”
I know all that.
That’s not the point.
The point is that I needed to be there.
I needed to be holding him.
I needed to be whispering in his ear about the day we brought him home, the times he saved me without even knowing it, all the dumb shit he did that made me laugh when I had nothing left.
He should’ve felt my breath on his face as he took his last.
Because he was my best friend.
My shadow.
My constant.
And I let him die alone.
That’s what happened.
So yeah, I’m going to carry that.
Not because someone is making me.
Because I want to.
Because it’s mine to carry.
That moment wasn’t stolen from me.
I lost it.
I failed him in the final seconds that mattered most, and I will carry that weight every single day for the rest of my life.
I will never let it go.
Because the pain I feel now?
It’s the only thing I have left that still belongs to us.
And if that makes people uncomfortable—
good.
They’re not the ones who lost him.
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