This is Part 2 of Buddy’s story—the part that happens after you think the saddest part is already over.
The part where you go back to “real life” and realize real life doesn’t care that you just buried your best friend in the frozen ground behind your childhood home.
If you didn’t read the first part: my old dog Buddy dragged himself out to our battered blue van and refused to move until I came home. He waited, on cold concrete, for me to sit in the driver’s seat one last time… and only then did he let go.
The morning after we buried him, my inbox thought nothing had happened.
I woke up on the lumpy couch in my dad’s living room, still wearing my old high school hoodie. The house smelled like coffee and damp winter air. For a second, in that blurry place between sleep and awake, I expected to hear Buddy’s nails clicking on the linoleum.
I heard the heat kick on instead.
Dad was at the kitchen table with an ancient crossword and a mug that said WORLD’S OKAYEST DAD. His eyes were red in that way older men’s eyes get when they’ve cried but don’t quite know what to do with the evidence.
“Morning,” he said.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table like it had something urgent to say. I ignored it. I poured myself coffee, sat across from him, and we pretended to read the newspaper for a while.
Then my phone buzzed again. And again. And again.
Finally, I flipped it over.
Twenty-four emails. Six missed calls. Three voicemails. A calendar reminder for “Q1 Strategy Presentation – 8:00 AM.”
I had completely forgotten.
My chest tightened. “Oh, crap.”
Dad looked up. “Work?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my temples. “I was supposed to present this morning. To the leadership team. It’s… kind of a big deal.”
He studied me for a long moment. “Can’t somebody else do it?”
I laughed, but it came out thin. “That’s not really how it works, Dad.”
He went back to his crossword, but his jaw twitched. “Seems like you work for people who think the sun falls out of the sky if you don’t open your laptop.”
I stepped into my old bedroom for some privacy and called my manager.
She answered on the second ring. “Hey, Emily, we were just talking about you. Are you able to jump on in ten? The client is already in the virtual room.”
I stared at the faded band posters on my teenage walls. “I… can’t.”
There was a polite pause. “Okay. Is everything alright?”
“My dog died last night,” I said. “I drove home. We just buried him this morning. I’m… not really in a place to sell anyone anything.”
Another pause, longer this time. I could hear her typing.
“I’m so sorry,” she said finally. “I really am. That’s awful. But we don’t usually approve bereavement time for pets. And this meeting has been on the books for weeks. If there’s any way you could just dial in for the hour—”
“From my dad’s kitchen?” I asked. “We literally just came in from the yard.”
“You wouldn’t have to have your camera on,” she offered, like that was kindness. “We just really need your voice in the room. You know this deck better than anyone.”
I looked out the window. Dad was standing by the van, hand on the hood, head bowed. A small fresh rectangle of turned earth sat near the fence.
“Here’s the thing,” I said slowly. “Last night, my dog waited outside in the cold because he couldn’t imagine me not coming home. Today, my dad is standing in the yard wondering how many goodbyes he has left. I don’t have an hour for anybody else right now.”
My voice surprised me. It was steady.
On the other end of the line, I heard an uncomfortable sigh. “I understand this is hard, Emily. But you know how it looks when you say no last minute.”
“I know exactly how it looks,” I said. “It looks like I finally realized I’m a human being, not a battery pack.”
Another silence. Then, stiffly: “Okay. I’ll let them know you’re unavailable. We’ll… figure something out.”
The call ended.
I stared at my own reflection in the dark screen for a long time—mascara smeared, hair a mess, the gray hoodie with the cracked graduation year. The kind of image that never makes it onto a professional profile.
Then, without totally thinking it through, I did something else my manager wouldn’t have approved of.
I opened my social media app.
I snapped a picture through the back door window: Dad’s hunched shoulders, the old blue van, the fresh dirt in the corner of the yard. The morning light was harsh and unflattering. No filters. No aesthetic.
And I wrote:
“Last night my old dog dragged himself out to this van and refused to move until I came home and sat behind the wheel one last time. He died with my hand on his fur and the engine humming like it did when I was 18.
This morning, my job asked if I could ‘jump on a quick call.’
I said no.
I don’t know what that’ll cost me. But I know what ignoring this would cost.”
I hovered over the “post” button, feeling ridiculous. People were out there dealing with wars and hospital rooms and eviction notices. And here I was crying over a dog and a missed meeting.
I posted it anyway.
Then I put my phone face down and went outside to stand next to my dad.
We didn’t talk. We just leaned against the van, shoulder to shoulder, like we had before every road trip when Buddy was still young.
By lunchtime, my phone was a small, buzzing beehive.
Hundreds of likes. Then thousands.
Comments stacking under comments, strangers replying to strangers, little blue dots of reaction faces marching across the screen faster than I could keep up.
My childhood driveway had turned into a public square.
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