It's Done...

note: My computer is in the shop, so I'm making due with the church's. I will add a photo once I get it up and running again.

This morning we took Beaner in to be put down. It was an agonizing decision for me to make. I've had her for nearly thirteen years and she has been a very very good dog. Chowder went with me, we left the kids at my sister's house. Skaterboy was in agreement with the decision, though he hated that it had to be made. We thought there was hope because my mom's vet gave us a couple of new prescriptions and she had started eating again, but only my mom's designer dog food. Well, she stopped eating. The medications didn't help. She was just getting worse. She couldn't stand without help and even though I would carry her outside a few times a day, she lost control of her bowels and was pooping all over herself in the house. It was horrible, and it was time.

We have been talking to the kids about the fact that Beaner's time was coming. We never explained euthanasia. Not quite a topic for 3 and 4 year olds to grasp. They began sharing their sadness at the idea but we came up with all of things that she would be able to do again once she was made whole in God. This is where things get a little goofy for us. While I loved Beaner as much as one can love an animal, I still believe that she was an animal. And while I believe that in the end all life returns to God, I don't believe in a doggy heaven that has become a great comfort to the children.

What struck me, as it always does, as I held her head and whispered into her ear while they injected the dose, was that death is so final. I know. I know. duh. right? but the profoundness of the loss is always beyond words. the finality. the doneness. the emptiness left in life's wake. the expansiveness of the silence following the last breath. the fragility that is...life. It shakes me to my very core. Because every life I love is attached to this simple, profound truth. my love can not spare them. It stops me in my tracks. It steals my breath. It puts the darkest of fear in my heart.