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A Dog’s True Purpose

A Figurative Story of How My Dog Saved My Life

By Mel SumerPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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I look at the giant, black iron gates and the ever-so-ominous campus they enclose. I’ve been here before. My dreams often lead back to this school and its crowded hallways. It has been almost two years since I left the terror that is my two previous schools, yet one small factor keeps bringing me back. I used to not be like this. I used to have great respect for these two schools, but now as a fifteen year old, I still think about the imprint these schools, and the people within them, have left on my memories.

MBS was a small, unknown school at the time, only consisting of grades K through 8. Each class had about sixty kids, which never got smaller or larger, so if you ever made an enemy, you were never going to escape from them until high school rolled around. I was blessed with this absolute horror only a year away from being able to leave the school. My seventh grade year did not start out this sour. It was as I started to follow the scent of betrayal that I realized it led to my best friend and my boyfriend. The end of the year was right around the corner when they decided to get everyone to turn against me, and of course, it worked. My birth name is Melek Sumer, which translates into “the fallen angel.” In Turkish, naming a child after a mythical creature is considered respectful, or good luck even, but at a Catholic school being dubbed a fallen angel is beyond horrific. This led into a year of teasing and horror. It was after all of this that life there became so disappointing and fruitless. I ended up leaving the school and never looked back. I will never forget the things said to me in those past few months. The opinions. The whispers. The torture.

Early August crept right around the corner faster than I could have hoped. I had just switched to PBS, and it was absolutely nerve wracking for me. The first weeks went by quickly as I started to befriend people in the “nerdy clique.” It was the second month of school when I walked into my physical science class and noticed the girls around me were cackling like hyenas. By the time I finally asked them what was so funny, all they could muster to me was the names of the girls from my last school. All of the names kept echoing in my head, and I started to shake, tears streaming down my face. It was after that day that something in me just snapped. I started to mess around in ways I am not proud of, was never coming home until the sun was finally rising, and was fighting people all the time. Early May was finally here when I realized something: I was the only one bringing hell to my own self. It wasn’t the people around me torturing me. It was just… me.

After months and months of whispers, I finally had decided it was time to end it all. I had just finished taking my exams, bolting out of the school, when my dad had called me to his fish shop. There was said to be a surprise there. Well, in a way there was. I walked into that fish shop with the mentality I was still going to end myself. That’s when I saw this tiny puppy. A three month golden retriever was lying at the foot of my dad’s LSU fish tank. I instinctively ran over to him, picking the baby up. This moment became better than any love story fathomable. There it was. The one factor that brought me back all those times in my dreams.

Buddy (the puppy) grew older, and I left what was my old life. I used everything I had in my system and poured it into him. All summer I took care of and nursed him like he was my own child. I am quite scarred from my shattered past and have dreams over it every night, but it always ends well because no matter what happens, no matter what people say, I will always have that no longer tiny puppy there for me.

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