On Loss and the Power of Images

A lazy summer day in the grass that seemed to stretch on forever. The moment retreats fast into the distance, held by memory and what I was able to capture.

I want to tell you about my best friend.

Lucky the Dog was the runt in a litter of puppies, though by the time I saw him I couldn’t tell. Even though my niece was supposed to pick one out, he wobbled over to me in that endearingly ungainly way that puppies have. Thankfully my niece was in to 101 Dalmatians at the time, so she named him Lucky when we adopted him.

From that day we were inseparable (apart from when he’d get loose and I’d find him gently carrying a turtle around in his mouth). He’d hang in the door to my office waiting for me to give him some attention or toss a ball (though never more than two or three times), or he’d lay on my bed. Behind the house he’d run in the bogs and get in the water. He got so big so quickly.

At five he tore a ligament on a run. He’d always be sensitive about it later, but gradually his strength and desire to zoom would return, but for a while he’d only get the sensation of the wind in his face during car rides.

Our friendship really blossomed when we moved to Plymouth. We’d walk every where exploring a new neighborhood, and we found the perfect spot along a walking trail where there was never anyone else around. I’d let him run off the leash and then call him back, watching him free filled me with so much joy (even if his recall wasn’t every good).

Lucky the Dog rushes past on a beautiful day at the end of Fall 2017.

We’d spend an hour or two down there every time I had a day off. We’d also jump in the car and go for a short ride down to Dunkin’ Donuts, car bouncing up and down a dirt road while his head hung out the window. He’d get an old fashioned donut and before we were back home it was long gone.

I changed jobs again in 2020, burned out on hospitality (and no one was able to book weddings). I was able to take Lucky with me to the office and for three years we were rarely apart. The backseat of my car was his space but I didn’t mind the pet hair because I got to go to work every day with my two best friends. It was perfect.

In the summer we’d go to the ice cream stand with my niece. We’d all get an ice cream and he loved that more than anything, after they’d close for the season he would keep trying to steer me over to it for months. It was something I looked forward to every week.

Lucky the Dog sniffs tentatively at the pup cup, Wicked Chill had run out of their regular biscuits.

But as with all good things, it didn’t last. I noticed a growth at the base of Lucky’s tail had been growing. It got a cut and because of where it was, it got infected in early 2023. We took him to the vet to get him antibiotics and get the growth removed, that’s when we found out that it was bone cancer. We got advice and took a wat-and-see approach because at his age they didn’t recommend chemo and surgery could be risky.

Lucky the Dog dons the cone of shame after his operation. Eventually we started taking it off for walks because it kept getting caught on everything.

He never quite bounced back after the surgery and looking back there were signs before - our walks had been getting shorter because he was getting tired more easily since the year before. I thought it was the heat and then the cold, but the years were catching up. After a while he couldn’t get in to the car and he stopped coming into the office with me. I tried to get him stairs or a little ramp but he just wouldn’t get comfortable with it.

So I would go by myself to the office and come home to his greeting. I’d go by myself to Dunkin’ Donuts and then come back with his donut to sit with him while he quickly devoured it.

The decline was slow. It started with a stumble or two during his walks. He struggled to get himself up and down. But you still couldn’t stop him. He would be up and at your side when the fridge opened in case there was something inside of it for him (I started to buy him pepperonis once Thursday pizza night became a tradition, so there usually was). He was also always ready to go on a walk, even if he could only go for a mile or two at a time (we went in the morning and then two or three times each evening). People would say hello to him and compliment him, it was like being with a celebrity.

He started to lose control of his hindquarters. At night we’d corral him into the kitchen and put up a gate for what I’d call “baby jail” because nobody wants to have to deep clean a carpet every morning. A tumor began growing on his abdomen, and like anything else it was hard to notice it grow over time. He got another infection at the end of February, we were treating it but he was getting bad faster. Every day was more of a struggle until the last few weeks when he had to be cajoled into a walk. Since December he could barely climb up the front steps and more than a few times I carried him into the yard or house. His breathing was often ragged and labored.

Thursday he didn’t eat.

Friday he wouldn’t get up until I lifted him up. He hadn’t eaten but he grudgingly went on a walk with me, moving slowly and carefully along the path we had been taking for the last year. The stumbling was much more apparent and he moved so slowly, struggling up the steps. I didn’t know that this would be our last walk.

He didn’t eat on Saturday. I decided we’d go back to the vet that afternoon and went about my day. I came back with his donut and noticed he hadn’t moved from where I’d left him an hour before (I had gone for a haircut), he barely acknowledged me as I came over with the crinkling bag in hand. He could barely lift his head as he nibbled at half a donut. He couldn’t finish a donut.

I sat there with him and cried and I have barely stopped crying since. I filled his water dish before we left.

It took a while to get him into the car. He hates getting picked up and while he felt so skinny in my arms, he was still awkward to pick up without him being in too much pain. I rolled down the windows, but he didn’t have his head out. We stopped at another Dunkin’ to see if he could eat a donut to get something in him, but he could only muster up the energy for half. I didn’t know that it was going to be his last car ride or his last donut.

Lucky the Dog slowly eating a donut.

In my mind I expected to know when it was going to happen. I thought that we were going to have time to have one last perfect day together where we could go to the water and he could run into the ocean, where we could eat all the worst and trashiest foods. That there would be time for us to just lay around and for me to rub his belly or sneak in a cuddle. But that clock had started a year before and I pretended it wasn’t ticking down.

The vet came in and I was crying. She said that it was time. They were going to prepare him for it. So I called my niece to come see him one last time.

They lead me to another exam room with a little more privacy and warmer décor. On the counter was a jar full of chocolates labelled “goodbye kisses” and I cried. When they brought him out, he had some pain killers and oxygen, so he seemed more full of life than he had been in the past week. When he walked past me and toward the door my heart absolutely shattered into a million pieces, my best friend just wanted to go home. I am at war with myself now, that maybe I could have changed my mind and put a stop to it. I could have argued, could have thrown money at the problem to buy him more time. But I know that was selfish, that it was better to let him go now than to just let things get worse and watch him wither and decay.

My niece left. I laid down next to Lucky the Dog and kissed him on his forehead like I did a thousand times before, the doctor put him to sleep. I wanted to reverse it, my heart was heavy with guilt and regret. It was so strange laying there with him, he was so still. I can still imagine the feelings of his fur between my fingers as I held him close to me, crying like I had never cried before.

But I had to let him go. His eyes were open and his tongue was out, but the dog that had been my best friend for fourteen years was gone. It felt like all that was left was a hole in my heart and regret.

I regretted getting a haircut.

I regretted not taking him to the vet again earlier.

I regretted not pushing back.

I regretted all the time I was doing other things when I could have been with him.

But then my mother pointed out something important - that there was never going to be “enough” when you really loved someone. That we spent hours together every day just going on walks or sitting quietly, and even if we could have done that for another week, another month, another year, I would still feel the exact same way I was feeling right then. She reminded me that I was so heartbroken because we did have such a special relationship.

Of course that leads us to the twist of this post.

I’ve been a professional photographer for 15 years, but I so rarely just take the time to sit with all the photos I take in my daily life. They get posted to Facebook, they live on a hard drive, they’re backed up to the cloud (at least after 2017). But in my grief there was this beautiful story that Lucky the Dog and I had been writing for almost 14 years, so many pictures and memories of all the time we spent together, all the adventures we shared. So, I hammered them together into a crude slideshow to remind me of it all, because my thinking of our relationship was so recent and confined to the size allowed by his struggles.

Whenever I miss him, I can just turn to these moments and remember. I can hold on to the best times and cherish the beautiful moments where we would lay in the sun and eat ice cream and not those last painful months. That’s the power of photography and what it can do for us, that is part of what you’re investing in when you hire a great wedding photographer for a day when you’re surrounded by your community and all the people you care about.

I hope that the memories of your loved ones lost are a blessing and I hope you enjoy what I can share of Lucky the Dog with you.

Copyright be damned, we’re going to use the music that hits you right in those feelings. In the wake of loss, our memories are all that we have left, and photographers can help shape those memories and preserve them.

Ryan Richardson is a wedding and lifestyle photographer serving Boston and Cape Cod.