My old dogs are breaking my heart today, but instead of the usual tears, I feel annoyed and angry. They will leave me too soon, as four of our pack passed away in my arms this past year. Several others remain - a few are younger but most are dear old family members bearing the creaky hips of mid-life, torn ligaments and weakening bladders.
Everyone died because they got old, that is the best and worst of it. They would have stayed longer and sometimes tried to struggle against the end, as if to continue pleasing me. Only one, Honeybear, was euthanized because cancer (and chemo) had already taken her, a once vigorous pitbull/boxer - she was in terrible pain and I would want to go into that good night myself in a similar state. Honeybear came into my life from the streets and too many years in a no-kill shelter. Only a few months before, Fuzzy, my pekingese discard, died at age 13. He'd been given up to a shelter years earlier by a family that traded him in for a huma baby. I'd just purchased a dog carriage for Fuzzy the Christmas before he died because he was getting too old for long walks but still liked the cool breezes in his face. It's never been used and sits, missing Fuzzy, in my livingroom. Like a tragic afterthought, Poohbear, a 17 year old cocker spaniel, quite deaf and given to plaintif wails, passed away only 12 hours after Honeybear. Then, in September, just when it seemed there was too much loss and grief to bear, Jingles, who'd just turned 15, lay down and died, her last breath awakening me at 4 am. My recollections of their passing are disconnected, disjointed from time and place by weeks and months, as if everyone died all at once and again - and again.
I have been thinking of them tonight more than most as Betsy, a tiny pomeranian surrendered to a shelter when she was nine, is now a dainty elder of about 17 - and failing. She cried to be picked up and because of her size, she is the baby - from tiny t-shirts to a baby bumper around her sleeping area - to keep her from bumping into things in the night. Betsy is blind. She's also got heart condition, low thyroid and a fondness for MacDonald's cheeseburgers.
I can't bear the pain of losing her, of enduring that awful pain that summons up all the past losses - of people, animals, dreams - and going through it all over again...I have several dogs, cats, a couple of birds. It will never end unless I send them away. And that won't happen. I won't break our trust but I feel so weary sometimes, gutted from feeling pain, watching my life wiped away in Nature's Miracle.
My old dogs are breaking my heart today, but instead of the usual tears, I feel annoyed and angry. They will leave me too soon, as four of our pack passed away in my arms this past year. Several others remain - a few are younger but most are dear old family members bearing the creaky hips of mid-life, torn ligaments and weakening bladders.
Everyone died because they got old, that is the best and worst of it. They would have stayed longer and sometimes tried to struggle against the end, as if to continue pleasing me. Only one, Honeybear, was euthanized because cancer (and chemo) had already taken her, a once vigorous pitbull/boxer - she was in terrible pain and I would want to go into that good night myself in a similar state. Honeybear came into my life from the streets and too many years in a no-kill shelter. Only a few months before, Fuzzy, my pekingese discard, died at age 13. He'd been given up to a shelter years earlier by a family that traded him in for a huma baby. I'd just purchased a dog carriage for Fuzzy the Christmas before he died because he was getting too old for long walks but still liked the cool breezes in his face. It's never been used and sits, missing Fuzzy, in my livingroom. Like a tragic afterthought, Poohbear, a 17 year old cocker spaniel, quite deaf and given to plaintif wails, passed away only 12 hours after Honeybear. Then, in September, just when it seemed there was too much loss and grief to bear, Jingles, who'd just turned 15, lay down and died, her last breath awakening me at 4 am. My recollections of their passing are disconnected, disjointed from time and place by weeks and months, as if everyone died all at once and again - and again.
I have been thinking of them tonight more than most as Betsy, a tiny pomeranian surrendered to a shelter when she was nine, is now a dainty elder of about 17 - and failing. She cried to be picked up and because of her size, she is the baby - from tiny t-shirts to a baby bumper around her sleeping area - to keep her from bumping into things in the night. Betsy is blind. She's also got heart condition, low thyroid and a fondness for MacDonald's cheeseburgers.
I can't bear the pain of losing her, of enduring that awful pain that summons up all the past losses - of people, animals, dreams - and going through it all over again...I have several dogs, cats, a couple of birds. It will never end unless I send them away. And that won't happen. I won't break our trust but I feel so weary sometimes, gutted from feeling pain, watching my life wiped away in Nature's Miracle.
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