Farewell to a Friend – A One Shot Story

A recent spring vacation in Europe with our daughter ended in sadness with the death, back home, of our beloved dog Milo at age 14. He had been gradually failing over the past month, so much so that we considered postponing our trip. (It was the same trip we had already rescheduled a year back after my 96 year-old Mother had a fall, the subject of one of my very first posts here on 35mmc).  Our friends who stayed with Milo and our younger dog Ollie assured us they would look after him, and so they did in incredible fashion. His final decline came only as we were in the air approaching JFK; he died peacefully while we were in the taxi from the airport, his body still warm as we arrived.

Grieving a pet is an experience like no other, qualitatively different than the loss of a person, yet tenacious and it its own way profound. Although I have experienced such loss in the past, and have accompanied numerous friends and patients as they’ve grappled with it, I have no special wisdom that allows me to rise above mourning or have any distance from it. Whether for a person or for a pet, grief acts through us. It takes us by hand and leads, bit by painstaking bit. Any notion that we can direct its workings is bound to fall short.

Still, anticipating that his time with us might be limited, I made some portraits of Milo with my Rolleiflex on the eve of our departure for Europe. I found the undeveloped film in a drawer in my darkroom, awaiting processing, the morning after we said goodbye to him.

Like many family pets, Milo has figured in innumerable photographs taken in our house during his lifetime. They show him in the full flush of puppy rambunctiousness; barking protectively as a concerned “brother” as my daughter and her friends plunge madly into the deep end of a pool; festooned with ribbons or a Santa hat on countless birthdays and Christmases.

The image I’ve included here shows Milo in his favorite chair in the relaxed posture that was a constant in his older age. Shot with a close-up adaptor, it is the dreamiest frame on that roll, and—owing to his unruffled, soulful expression (he had no fear of the camera, and seemed instinctively to know what was expected)—it is by far my favorite.

In addition to the scanned image, I’ve made a 10×10 inch print of the photo in the darkroom. It will in due course find a suitable spot in our home.

Thanks for reading.

You can see more of my photos on my website, leica1933.com.

FEATURED IMAGE: Milo Sitting for a Portrait, 2026. Rolleiflex 2.8F, Rolleinar II Close-Up Adaptor, Kodak Tri-X 400 rotary processed with Pyrocat PMK Developer.

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