When Our Pets Are All The Family We Have
All photos owned by Author.
And why we can’t let them go, even when we know it’s time.
My friend Charity has a dog named flick. He’s a two year old Mastiff. He started getting sick about six months ago and he hasn’t stopped.
Yesterday I got a call asking me to come help her decide what to do with him. I’ve known this dog since he was a puppy, and while my head knows what the smart thing to do is, my heart rails against it everytime I ty to tell her I think it’s time to let him go.
These two are like ike and Mike, ok? Inseparable. If she can’t take him with her, she doesn’t go. Period. The amount of money that she’s paid in pet deposits alone is staggering.
I love animals, and would adopt every single one of them if I could. I’ve got a puppy now named Bella that if she got sick, I would go nuts trying to get her better. So I can only imagine the hell it’s been for my friend to watch her dog die slowly over the past six months.
Before you jump to conclusions, let me add that she’s spent upwards of $ 3,000 taking him to vets only to hear that they don’t know what’s wrong. She’s done what she was supposed to do; tried to nurse him back to health, sought professional guidance when she realized she couldn’t, and now she’s going to have to do the very worst thing she could possibly imagine, which is give her dog back to the God who created him.
I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem fair to me, to lose the very things you love the most.
I don’t know what to say to this lovely, heartbroken, forlorn woman that I consider one of my closest, most abiding friends. Don’t know how to help heal what’s about to be broken inside of her. Some people would say that it’s just a dog, not a person. But I would say those people are assholes and good candidates to take this dogs place.
The fact of the matter is, this dog is like my friends kid. And when he dies, he’s going to take a big chunk of her with him. Because as much as we keep a piece of our lost loved ones with us when they pass, I think they take some of us with them so they can do the same. This is how we balance our love.
In loving memory of flick.2019-2022
