My Hero

Today is the same day I put Hero to sleep, three months ago. The day after I went to work and did nothing. Sat at my desk, crying. People in the office pretended not to see me and I didn't care one way or the other. Then I went home and lay down on the couch and cried until my eyes nearly swelled shut and my nose was so stuffed up I had to breathe through my mouth. Two weeks went by and nothing changed; nothing really has changed now, 3 months later, except I no longer have moments where I think I see him lying on my bed out the corner of my eye.

Even though I know, logically, that euthanasia is supposed to be an act of compassion, when I remember the moment the vet inserted the needle into his catheter and how barely a second later Hero slumped over, lifeless... I see no dignity in his experience and I feel no comfort. There is no comfort for me in any of it, even how he jumped down from the examining table and curled up in my lap for what would be the last time, as we were waiting for the vet to come back to hear my decision. I don't know if I believe I deserved his trust in me; he did not know at that moment I had to decide if he would die that day.

I still feel like if I had taken him to the vet sooner, they could have helped him. When he died he only weighed 5 pounds. But I thought he was doing better after his surgery in Febuary and I didn't take him before the 3 months was up (they told me to wait 3 months after surgery before his next check-up) and by the time I took him, he was so dehydrated that if he were human he would have been put in intensive care & have gone on dialysis immediately. I know it's common for grieving pet ownwers to feel guilty, wondering if only we had brought our pets in sooner they would still be alive today, but again, it still brings me no comfort. Hero deserved everything that could possibly be done for him, and even though I tried, I could have tried harder. I procrastinated and treated it like saving his life was another chore. It was my own fault for being so optomistic and refusing to believe he would die.

He was a friend, he was my little child, my unconditional love.

He watched me sleep through golden eyes.

Now his ashes are in a box on my windowsill.

And I haven't washed the blanket that still smells like him.