Processing grief for a dead pet family member
We found you in your tank, your body half in your moist hide as though you had fallen asleep on your way in, too tired from the medications and treatments we'd used to try to fix the mystery thing that was making fluids seep into your coelom. When I lifted you and your rock, intent on trying to get you to take your morning dose of liver supplement and prophylactic antibiotic, I felt a sucker punch.
You were too stiff to be merely asleep.
You did not respond and, as cliché as the term is, my heart sank. I felt like you were dead, but I couldn't bring myself to do that verification. Was that leg twitch a ghost of your nervous system? Was the shifting at your throat a trick of the light?
We took you to the vet, the place of your torment and prior salvation. We'd medically boarded you there for a month when you kept tearing your stitches out a couple years ago. You survived that.
They were all apology and awkward conciliation as I asked them through tears to verify that you were gone. I needed somebody not blinded by love to be the arbiter.
They found a faint heartbeat, which they attributed as a lizard thing. You're just hearty like that. Not hearty enough to be okay, but for your body to cling to life. For us to have to choose to end it for you. The vet said that they could care for you, but it wouldn't matter. You were gone, the parts of you that were sweet and sassy and wonderful were not there and would never come back.
They let us say goodbye, but we couldn't possibly be ready with the words we needed to say. Will I ever be able to share the words I needed to say then? We thanked you for being in our lives. We tried our best to say a good goodbye. Then we let them take you so they could end your suffering by stopping your heart.
They asked what we wanted to do with you. I wanted answers, but I couldn't bear for them to cut into your body anymore. Cognitively, I knew you wouldn't feel it, but I couldn't let them do anything else to your body. You'd been through enough, had earned the quiet, long sleep.
They gave you to us in a box, along with a clay imprint of your feet and tail. I love them for that, but hate them for the fact that despite their interventions last week, despite giving you the prescribed medications, our efforts did not work.
Two hours later, after dealing with taking a day off work, we buried you in the front yard. Initially, I wanted to put you under the rose bush that bore flowers of the same yellow color as your body, but it seemed too open, too unsafe. We found a hollow between the hydrangeas that you might have liked as a hiding-place if you were allowed to dart around outside (too cold, too unsafe during life).
P wrote you a letter, which he read aloud and tucked into your box. We lifted you to put moss beneath your body- a fitting bed for you since you seemed to love sleeping on it during life. I told your story, and we covered your box with dirt.
It's been two days and the pain is only just scabbing over. The grief still lies within our habits.
This morning, I found myself checking your tank for you, only to find it like a spiritless body. When I catch movement in the glass, I look over. They're only reflections- you're not climbing from one platform to another, or begging for food at the front of the tank.
I don't know how long it will take for these habits to subside, and for thoughts of you to not take prime residence in my mind. Today was better than yesterday, and tomorrow may be better.
Part of me wants to cling to this grief, because to be done with mourning feels like I am accepting the fact that I will begin to forget the details that gave you life. Perhaps the guilt I feel for not being able to save you is also why I cling to this pain- I deserve it in a way because I am alive and you are not.
Part of me wants to forget because the pain still occasionally makes it hard to breathe.
I love you and miss you.
