it is so unfair. she has done nothing to deserve it. and yes, i know there are millions of people out there suffering, hurting and dying from diseases and i, quite frankly, don't give a shit. they are statistics to me and nothing more. this dog was my friend. this dog has not hurt, harmed, bitten or upset anyone (well except me, when chewing on my favourite t-shirts). and yet, this dog has gone through pains i can't and don't even want to imagine, has gone through the despair of not understanding what is wrong, through the vain hope of us being able to help. i hope that she has gone before going through disappointment at our impotence. but no one and nothing will get it out of my head that those haunting yells didn't have the note of a plea for help in them. and no one and nothing will, i think, rid my of this totally irrational guilt that i couldn't do anything for her. just like i can't escape a whole train of other "if only's" regarding her. like... if only i had taken better care, spent more time, paid more attention to possible signs i might have missed, had more patience, didn't snap during the last days... it's weird, i still can recall the two nights when i just couldn't baer it anymore to hear her cry. the first one, i took a sleeping pill that totally numbed me at first and totally knocked me out afterwards. i just fell asleep next to her, she has probably cried like she had done the previous nights but i couldn't hear. the second time... i snapped at her, then sat down next to her, leaned to the wall and the fridge, put one hand on her head, cuddled under the blanket and tried to sleep to the music in my headphones, ignoring the wails i heard during the song's ending and renewed beginning. i still can't bear to hear this particular song.it was one thing to know that she will only live until my parents come back... another thing to accept that. in spite of making arrangements for visiting the doctors in budapest, taking more days off to do so, making provision of painkillers (i have become an expert at administering injections to dogs... and i could've sworn i would never be able to actually pierce living skin with a needle, let alone a muscle)... i knew deep inside that there was nothing left to be done. just like i knew it had to be my decision to put her to sleep.
the last day was horrible. the painkillers and anti-contraction drugs started to have nearly no effect at all though i had increased the dose to nearly the maximum. she was crying almost without a break, she was desperate when there was no one in sight. we longed for the vet to come, to relieve her and at the same time we knew we actually counted down the last couple of hours of her cruelly short life. i can only imagine how helpless she must have felt being pinned to the ground, having to call for our attention for such basic needs like thirst, hunger and having her diaper blanket changed, or how desperate she was lest we should leave her alone. unlike rocky, who seemed to have come at peace with himself, who had taken his goodbyes in his silent way, she had a will to live. she was young, strong and... condemned. by a stupid degenerative disease, but in the end, by me. i am glad we did it at home. moving her would have meant more torment and agitation. at least she was in her territory, she knew the doc, she didn't complain when she was given the ketamine that knocked her out. i now partly understand why they didn't let my dad in with rocky. it was mesmerizing to watch the vet prepare the needle, knowing it is what will eventually kill her, even though it is the best option for her. she went peacefully in her drug-induced sleep, with her head in my lap.
for some reason i kept stroking her ear and playing with her soft ears in the car, on the way to the place we meant to bury her. my dad had dug her grave a couple of feet away from where rocky lies and i don't want to know how he felt while he was at it that morning, alone in the field.. she was heavy to carry, as inert bodies are. i wish i had some other last images of her etched in my mind than the ones i have. but the ones that keep coming back is the despair in her eyes in the last days, her head lolling to one side with her tongue hanging out while we were carrying her in a blanket and her rolled up in the grave. i gave her her favourite chewed out toy and a puppet i had given her to hold in the last days. when my dad jumped down to level the first layer of earth over her, it was almost too much. i felt the urge of just wanting to take her out of there.
it's over a month later now. she died on the 5th of september. she would've had her fourth birthday on the 14th. on the 19th four years ago, it had been rocky's turn. she had been the one to partly cure that pain, but we had never expected her to have such a short life. and yet... i slowly find myself wanting a dog again. because nothing... absolutely nothing compares to that. :(
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