Penny for my Thoughts

The sun shines too brightly, the air is too warm, in short, day is far too beautiful for the topic on which I am about to post, but the tale must be told. I am now, moreso than usual, forcing myself to continue to type; this is not coming easily for many reasons. But I feel I must purge, must undergo this catharsis, or have these emotions calcify in my heart.
My dog is dead.
She passed some time ago, two days before my twenty-sixth birthday.
I've avoided making public the knowledge of her death, though I have friends in whom I could confide. They are animal lovers, and dog-people specifically, and would genuinely commiserate with me. But I feel my grief is my own, and I did not want to inconvenience others with it. Moreso, I did not want to share it.
There is another aspect to my reticence: I did not want to gain anything from the sympathy I would receive. I did not want people to be kinder to me than they would otherwise because if the loss. It strikes me that I would be indirectly benefiting from her death.
Now, however, enough time has past and I can look back with some degree of objectivity. This chosen venue proves advantageous, too. It has been so long since my last post I doubt anyone even checks this old wreck anymore. As such, this entry will no doubt remain between myself and the electronic page.
We bought, technically my grandmother bought, Penny, a three-month-old pup, from the MSPCA the summer before I started eighth grade. She was forty-five dollars, discounted to fifteen after we had her spayed. She had two brothers, all black. I wished we could have bought the lot of them. An unlikely blend of beagle and German shepherd, the two lines intermingled more gracefully than one would imagine. We called her Penny because of her coloring, a yellowed copper like a tarnished one-cent coin. In autumn she would blend nearly seamlessly with the fallen leaves.
She was the best dog I've ever had.
I know that's not saying much, as I'd never had a dog of my own before her, and never really taken proper care of, or, shamefully, even more than a passing interest in, the previous family dogs.
She was hard to train, but intelligent, and those two qualities were probably related.
She seemed to like me, though. Once I started school again she followed me, Mary's little lamb-style, several times. She also tore that year's school books to shreds when I made the mistake of leaving a backpack unattended, just in case you think she might have had some reverence fro academia.
When she was only a few months old we took her on a hike to the Summit House on Mount Holyoke. My grandmother protested. She doubted Penny could make it. It was a near thing, her trembling little legs struggling to heave her tiny body over the roots and rocks. But make it she did.
From then on we took her everywhere with us, especially anywhere wooded and wild. She'd bound gazelle-like over branches and logs, tail wagging furiously. We never kept her leashed, no matter how many times she ran away from us, making every hike a frustrated, desperate search.
When I started working, the summer after my sophomore year, I began supporting the dog monetarily as well as with my time and attention.
By the time of her death I was paying all the veteranary bills and buying her top-of-the-line dog food in a vain effort to keep her weight under control. (She'd become sedentary in her later years, and developed arthritis in her back knees).
The morning of her death my stepmother awoke and let her outside. My father stepped into my room and roused me, more tentitavely than the usual bursting, manic wake-up call. He told me abruptly that she was dead.
I walked into the back yard with him and saw her immediately, on her side near the back stairs. She had recently emptied her bowels, her last order of business before keeling over.
I hated myself then, for not being with her at the end. I had had plans of taking her on one last hike. Of cooking her a filet mignon as her last meal, cradling her gently as she faded away.
In truth I hadn't walked her in the past week. I could blame work and school for leaving me no time. I was lazy and thoughtless and callous. It's that simple.
Her death should havecome whilst she was racing through the wilderness. Instead she died in the mud one grey morning, in our backyard, alone.
I failed her at the end.
Even now I come home from work and expect her to be waiting near the door for me. When writing to-do lists I have to stop myself from adding "walk dog." I go on hikes which seem empty without her.
The Sunday after she died, my birthday, my father, brother, and I took Penny on one last hike. Wrapped in warm blankets and snug in a plastic recycling tote, we carried her -- considerably heavier than she was as a bouncing puppy -- to the summit of Mt. Holyoke. We found a quiet spot well off the path, at the top of a stony ridge, and buried her facing east, as the sun rose.
We squabbled and yelled the whole way. At one point I cam close to striking my brother.
After she was interred, though, we were overcome by love for her and for each other. We descended the mountain closer than we had been for some months.
That was her last gift to us.
I'm off on a hike now, and I will think of her as I pass the spot marked on the path from which one would set off in order to find her grave.