12.24.15
My dog died today. I watched him die.
I watched his belly swell and I looked at the syringe of blood they took. I watched them stick in the needles and I watched them paralyze him. I saw his eyes.
He was scared and then he was okay and then he was scared again. I saw his eyes open and shut. I watched them stick in the needles. I watched him breathe hard and then stop. I did not see his soul leave his body. I couldn’t. I saw panic and stillness. I saw fear and then, was it peace? I don’t know. He looked like a dead dog. He looked like my dead dog.
He didn’t want to die. He was scared. I saw it before we took him to the vet, while he was laying on the couch unable to move. He was afraid to die, I know that. I saw it. I saw it and I felt it bite my chest.
What did it feel like? Can you tell me? Euthanasia has to hurt. Was he sedated long enough? He was breathing so hard, like you see animals on TV do when they’re shot or whatever. The heaviness and the daze, it’s all true. Then it just happens and you don’t know exactly what it was. Did he know he was dying? Flying, sailing, dying, same thing.
Dogs don’t have religion. Do they know about the rainbow bridge? All they want to do is sleep and eat and play and bark and maybe get a little affection. So do I. Why do I deserve to know about the rainbow bridge and he does not?
One of my most haunting memories happened when he nipped at my friend and she freaked out. I yelled and pushed him away from her, sending him skidding across the kitchen linoleum, his back legs sprawling out behind him in a spout of arthritis. He struggled to get back up and shivered at my anger. I saw his eyes and they were afraid. I felt my chest and it had the same kind of guilty-sad cramp as it does right now. I cried because I wasn’t sure if he understood that I didn’t mean to cause him any fear or pain.
Am I doing this right? Am I being a good person? Or did my anger make me into something death-like? Humans are weird because we keep pets of mostly different species and expect them to sit down when we tell them to and not be defensive when they see fit. I want to think about him happy, chewing on wood chips and begging for belly rubs, but is that enough?
It’s weird for someone so present and permanent in your life to be alive and die in the same day. Where is he now? His body? His soul? Does he know about the rainbow bridge.
What now? Do I move on? Do I stop loving him? Why aren’t I crying still? Why does no one in my family seem sad? They’re just tired.
That’s the thing about people; they’re always tired. I’m tired I’ll admit. I’m tired and I still don’t know what to do. Maybe I haven’t absorbed anything yet. Maybe the worst is yet to come, or maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and open whatever gifts I have under the Christmas tree, and I won’t even think of Kirby.
Flying, sailing, dying, same thing.
For Boxer - Kimya Dawson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ-KDwCq2_s
