If we don’t take the time to remember, we will most assuredly forget.
I had to put my dog down 10 days ago. It’s just starting to creep in on me now.
It was a really special day for us, though; we both knew it was time from the moment he woke up that morning. He was going strong up until that point…he loved his life everyday. He would wake up with me, I’d open my back door, he’d wander around for a half hour and then jump in my truck and we were both at work—at the beach for sunrise each morning.
We connected really well spiritually. I honestly believe we were able to have actual conversations in the thought world. Take it for what it’s worth—it doesn’t matter if you believe because I do. I think that whole day was one long conversation of Goodbye.
I had been asking him to let me know when he was ready to go; that morning I saw the look in his eyes as we both noticed his left side fail him as he tried to stand up…it was time. I put him outside and hoped to see him walk it off, but he would take a couple of steps, and then fall. Couple steps, then fall. I brought him back inside after he pissed just off the deck; he walked himself back out and took a dump…a healthy one, then he insisted on trudging through the deep snow—two steps fall, two steps fall, all the way to the driveway.
I made the call. With two and half hours to waste and think, I called my good friend who had offered to be there when the time came. I think it was some sort of closure for him too.
We met at my work down by the beach. It was a warm winter day and I brought
Cooper to all of his daily favorite ‘spots’ at work. Nobody around, just like every day in the winter. It was our own. Cooper had a blast trying to keep up with us and being at his home away from home again. As I said, he knew this was his day too.
It was 10am and B said we should get some beer, go down to the beach parking lot and that he had brought a bowl. I was thinking something else, but when he pulled out this little Corelle bowl, I finally got it. We were all going to have a beer together like the old days. My dog loved beer and liked booze. And I have a really good friend. We spent some time together at the beach and then I had to go. We had to go.
He was so calm when I laid him on the table. He didn’t shake like usual and he wasn’t panting either. He was calm. He looked around the room and I was eye level with him all the time. He didn’t want to make eye contact, but I held his face in my hands and we communicated again. I noticed a drop of water on the end of his nose and just below it, another one on the end of his mouth; he was crying. He was crying from his soul, not his eyes.
Within five seconds of the injection I removed my hands from under his head and laid it on the exam table. Doc said, ‘he’s gone.’ I left and was in such a state of total peace knowing that we had just spent the most perfect last day imaginable.
I didn’t cry then.
I have since.
