Dogs do it.

Our four-legged companions do a lot of things that seem like reflections of their masters. They lounge when we lounge, they usually eat the same things we eat, and they're uncannily familiar with our schedules. In fact, my parents have a dog that has Swiss watch accuracy in knowing the time when my dad comes home from work. She'll get up from wherever she happens to be and will wander over to the door mere seconds before Dad pulls in the driveway.

Dogs are also pretty similar to us when it comes to emotional behavior. A dog's happiness is noticeable. We can see their tails wag and their ears perk up when they're excited, we know that THEY know we're talking about them when their heads tilt in curiosity, and sometimes, we can tell just by their barks how they feel. Seriously. My brother's beagle has a very distinct "feed me now" bark, which is very different from her "don't even think about it" bark.

They're pretty good at conveying another emotion humans are familiar with. Ever watch the ASPCA commercials on daytime television? The shots they get are pretty good, aren't they? You know they're real if you've ever spent any time inside a dog pound. Their little eyes stare up at you, so full of hope and sadness and a little desperation. Watch a woman say goodbye to her son for an unknown amount of time, and then recall the little eyes I referred to in the previous sentence. Vaguely reminiscent, no?

My mother adopted a dog from her friend. At the time, we had a beautiful cat (my cat, no one else's) and an old "mut," for lack of a better term. He was mostly terrier, with just a hint of hound in his nose and floppy ears. Mom named him Rosco. Rosco and the adopted dog, Cuddles (we didn't name him), spent three or four long, happy years together before Rosco's age caught up with him. He was 18 when he died, which, in dog years, meant he had a fantastically long life.

For a solid month, Cuddles would roam the house aimlessly, sniffing the carpet, the couch, the armchair, behind my parents' bed, the bottom of the stairs--anywhere Rosco usually hung out. It wasn't long before Cuddles couldn't find Rosco's scent anymore, and it seemed to confuse him. He would huddle up behind the couch and stare at the little discolored area where they used to sun themselves for hours without moving. A few years later, Mom's lonely dog had moments when the look on his little doggy face would look like it did when Rosco didn't come back in from outside. Confused, sad, a little desperate.

I was a lot younger when all of this happened. At 14 years old, I understood death fairly well because there was a small rash of deaths in my extended family, of older people whose time had simply come; I wasn't unfamiliar with what was happening when Rosco died, despite him being a very real aspect of my daily life, and I felt the usual pall of sadness that seems to hover above the household for a few days.

Something was different, though, in the way Cuddles reacted. Mom, of course, was beside herself, but she understands that pets come and go. The other dog, though, wasn't cruelly made accustomed to that idea, and his behavior reflected the difference. Removed. Stoic. Searching.

I didn't see that expression again until I was in 9th or 10th grade when my friend was killed in a car accident. Her sister was driving the car, and for months afterward, the image of unimaginable sorrow caressed her features. It was in the way she was walking to and from her classes, slumped over, never staring at anything but the floor. It was in her meek "Hello"s and her barely audible "Goodbye"s and the fact that she never really said much more than that. The worst part, the part that still flashes through my memory from time to time, was the look in her eyes. She was seeing something none of us could see, and she was seeing it alone. Only she could really ever experience it. She was a hostage, held at gunpoint by her own memory, and all the camera can see is her despair. When she said "Hello" she wasn't really saying that. She was saying "I'm sorry" and "please help me find my sister."

A few years later, I saw that expression again. A beautiful, well-liked handsome guy from St. Lawrence took his own life because he couldn't withstand the heartache of the world. He was gay, proud and out to the world, and he came from a wonderful, loving family from Burnt Hills, NY. He drove an expensive car, but never flaunted it, he had a terrible singing voice, but sang anyway, and he never, ever made you feel like you weren't worth every second he spent with you. His charisma filled the room before he did and he just languished in it, loving every moment of his life. Or so it seemed from an outsider's point of view.

The expression of pain, of guilt, of desperation, of longing, of agony--of endless searching--reappeared in my life again, but this time, I couldn't avoid it. It was my reflection.

For one entire week after my radiant confidant, my great white hope for my own future (he was out! he was proud! I was scared and alone and not sure what to do with myself, but he came to help me!) took his life, after he callously left me alone in this god forsaken horror film that never ends, I sat on my parents' couch, where Rosco used to sit, and cried. I wept for him and what he must have felt to push him to end his own life, I wept for everyone who has ever lost someone special to them, I wept for his parents and his sister and his friends, who are all incredible people who do not deserve this, and I wept for myself because, when something like this happens to you, that's all that feels comfortable. Tears were comforting. The outpouring of my soul was comforting because I knew that if I kept it in, I would drown and be lost forever.

Cuddles is very old now. He has reached his 14th birthday and, with the way his health is rapidly declining, it doesn't look like he'll have many more birthdays. I noticed something familiar about him when I came home from college for Winter break, but it wasn't until this morning that the strange twinging in my memory became crystal clear-- he's looking for his friend again. He'll roam the house just as aimlessly as he did 9 years ago, and he'll return to the same places he and Rosco used sleep together, places he hasn't gone near since the last time he mourned. The same look of desperation keeps appearing on his face, and now, maybe because he's so old, he'll whimper by himself as he wanders.

Time heals all wounds, but what happens when it isn't our bodies that are scarred? What happens when it's something a lot deeper, deeper even than the bloody battlefield of love?

I mentioned that dogs seem to mirror our behaviors well. It wasn't until I noticed Cuddles's behavior that I realized I'm doing the same thing he is. At random points throughout my day, I reflect on how I'm feeling because an all-too-familiar creeping up of sorrow and loss seems to consume me unexpectedly. Nowadays, I brush it off as hormones or some kind of minor chemical imbalance, but all of the pieces clicked together in a different conclusion.

When someone dies, phantoms of their lives will begin appearing all around you. Things that never had much significance suddenly ignite with their own ephemeral fires, glowing vibrantly as you pass them, triggering memories of much, much better times. If you're like me, those fires become torches in the night that are just out of reach, but you'll keep walking toward them, aimlessly, removed, stoic.

And always searching.