PREFACE

October 29, 2009

I begin this at the end.

I do so perhaps because the end is so painfully fresh in my heart that it temporarily blurs the happier times which came before; before the cancer, the diagnosis, the treatments, the doctors, the prayers, the tear-filled nights and hysterical days; before the days of pre-bereavement filled with anticipated grief; and before the days we tried to forestall the inevitable decision we would have to make. It overwhelms the memories of the days, months and years of games and toys and brushing of fur and laps, kisses, hugs, petting and cuddling and arms that cradled her as she slept ... and love. I try to focus on those times. I try to remind myself that while the petting and cradling and laps will be over, the love will never ...ever ...end. I try. But on this day, on this last day I hold her and rock her and sing to her our favorite song, on this day the ache in my chest and the low moan of pain that rises from my gut spilling from my eyes in constant streams of tears is too overwhelming. And so it blurs those happier times.

And so this diary or journal of the beauty and love she brought into my life and the painful void that I know will come when she leaves it is begun at the end. Even though in many ways, we 'lost' her months ago when she was first diagnosed with the fatal illness, she was at least still here to pet and talk to and rub against our ankles. Tomorrow I will hold her again. But then it will be for the last time.

Some of the chapters are taken from letters I wrote to Sandy weeks before the exact date we knew we would lose her. Before I made the hardest decision in my life when to call the vet.

Death does not always come uninvited or unexpected or when we have chosen to look the other way because we cannot bear to stare it in the face as it hovers over the ones it claims. Certainly, inviting death to hover and claim the ones we love, is unthinkable. Impossible. Yet I try to convince myself that there are times when those invitations of Death are made out of love and as our final act of love and kindness and respect. Support groups and counselors try to reassure me that it is our love for our pet children to want them free from pain or never to feel the pain at all or sense their own slow, gradual demise and lost quality of life which impels us to make this otherwise unthinkable decision. In my logical brain, I try to accept that. Yet, in this heart of mine that aches even before I kiss her fur the last time, it seems it is exactly because of my love for Sandy that I cannot accept the decision.

And yet, I have made it.

So this is dedicated not just to my Baby Girl, but to the thousands and thousands of others with their own pet children who are struggling or who have struggled or who will struggle with the decision to open that dreaded door and extend that most unthinkable of invitations all because we love them as much as we do and always will.

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"MY BABY OF MINE" Our favorite song and one I always sang to her even - and especially - as I held her for the last time.
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