A Double Salvation

by Emily
(Scotland, formerly California)

Justine. The fair one. A name usually given to women of fair complexions and fair personalities. A name that to me went far beyond that; it was a name that meant justice, second chances, and what was right.

Justine "Jessie" came into my life and I came into hers at a crossroads of both of our lives. I was depressed, having just moved across the country and left behind my family in search of work. Jessie was an hour away from being put down at a county animal clinic. Somehow when our eyes met in that place of hopelessness and somber reality, we both knew we'd found our salvation. She immediately became mine, and I became hers.

Over the past six years of life together, we grew together, played together, laughed (yes, she did laugh), cried when we were lonely, got sick at the same times, and found our joints getting a bit creakier each passing year. I got married and she moved slightly to the side, never complaining and never upset at the lack of full attention. She was happy to stay on her bed, because salvation was just a few feet away.

Jessie came with me everywhere. We went snowboarding on the mountains, running through California surf, hiking rocky cliffs in the desert, and finally, we moved overseas together- another world full of new smells, people, and opportunities.

But... as life does take us down strange and twisting roads, life finally took us down divergent roads. Me, onward into the unknown future. Jessie, alone this time, into the beyond. She crossed the river in peace, across to the land that loves silence.

She was my everything. My sweety, my cup of tea in the morning, my reality check when things got tough, my tuck into bed at night. My salvation.

I don't think that she could ever imagine how upset I am at her absence. The days seem colder. The nights quieter. But somehow, I can imagine that in that land somewhere far away, on a distant shore she's standing there still, hiking a tough hill or splashing on the shore, just waiting for salvation to arrive once more.