Note: we had to put my Dad's dog down today. For those of you who don't know, I recently lost my father....I wrote this as a tribute. Beta by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes Warning: death (pet and human)...heartbreak... ~~~~~~~~~~ Time has been on my side, and I believe it’s been on yours too. I met you when I was very little. You seemed a lot like me, gentle, but large. Your family took me and my friend in as one of your own. We were so blissfully happy when you did. We had many loving years together, but I watched as it was harder for you to get around. Trips to the bathroom became harder, and longer for you. You lie down more often than you used to, naps becoming more frequent. Where you used to stand and make me food, you no longer occupy that space, your children do. You take more of those things that seem to make you feel better. I hear it in your chest, your breathing, how labored it is. Then came the falls. You would fall, hardly able to get up, and they would call for other people to come help you. I worried the first time, but then the second time, I became very afraid….until eventually, you left. Your room, empty...Eventually, your family moved your things out of your room, and I think I knew - I just knew you weren’t coming home. But every once in a while, your voice would fill the room and my heart would race, remembering our times together watching TV, listening to radio, reading together. My friend, that came with me to your humble home, she passed away in the time that you were in a far off land. I know you would miss her, but it was time for her to go. Time seems to be slowing down for me, I, too, like you can no longer move around as well as I was able to. Stairs are difficult for me like they were for you, old friend. My hearing is not so good and I can not hear when our family calls to me. My sight so blurred that your children are merely figures to me now. I get sick and do not know it...Was it this way for you? I hope not. Something was off...One day, your youngest one came home, her pain palpable from where I sat in the living room. Your wife, she’d been crying for hours as well. In a way...I knew...I knew you’d left this Earth, that time was no longer on your side, old friend. I can only hope that you went peacefully, that you were no longer in the pain that I watched you devolve into. I hope that wherever you went for all these years, they made your last few years pain free and happy. Knowing you were gone, well it wore on me, old friend. My ailments have increased ten fold. The young ones around me play and frolic but I can not keep up. Was it this way for you? Time is no longer on my side, as it has stopped for you. I may be old, and nearly blind, but I’m not unwise. I know that my time with your beautiful family has come to an end. I am not sad though, I’ve lost my dearest friend and I’ve lost you. The family said goodbye to me today, and I knew my time was up on this Earth. Your son-in-law drove me to a nice place this morning, where they helped me go to sleep, he assured me it would all be alright. Do not fret, old friend, I’m almost there to see you. So hold tight, until I see you again.