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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Bye Bye Becca

The one constant of life is death and my wife and I came face-to-face with this reality yesterday. Our beloved Becca (a Labrador-Collie mix) had to be euthanized. It's never an easy decision to end the life of a pet, but sometimes it's the most humane and compassionate thing to do.

Of course, we were there when she was "put to sleep". I would have rather skipped the procedure, but the reason for being there is to comfort your friend, not yourself. She had provided so much comfort to us for more than a decade that we couldn't turn our back on her when she needed our comfort the most.

It's an odd thing to see your beloved pet slowly lay her head down -- one last time -- then lay motionless. You stroke her head and she no longer responds. You say her name and she no longer wags her tail. She's laying there in front of you, yet she's no longer there.

We both cried, long and hard. I know a lot of people would say we were crying for Becca, but I think we were crying for ourselves. The pain of death is for the living, not the dead.

Our other animals seem out of kilter now. Becca's best friend, Heidi (a German Shepherd-Collie mix), keeps going from room-to-room looking for her pal. Becca's cat buddy, Dylan, isn't sure which dog to greet when he comes in from outside. Scruffy (dog) seems depressed and the other two cats (Little Bit and Mookie) sense that something's out of place.

Something IS out of place -- Becca's gone.

1 comment:

  1. So sorry for your loss....

    We lost one of our golden retrievers, Roxie, to cancer a couple months ago. She was an old girl and we had her only a few years (rescue) but it was still tough to let her go. She was active up to her last day, and then collapsed and had to be put to sleep. She died in my arms, and went peacefully.

    Take care.... Namaste...

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