For the first time in over a decade, I do not have to share my toast. I can come out of my office midmorning, wander to the kitchen, get out the bread and maybe some peanut butter, and have a piece of toast without a smiling face (or two a couple of years ago) coming in to meet me and demand a share of my repast.
Maggie, our yellow lab, was put down this past Tuesday. A battle with a cancer that ultimately put her in a position where we could no longer keep her.
The hardest part of putting an animal down, to me anyway, is not the loss I feel for myself, though I do miss her (and her sister a couple of years ago), but the feeling you get when you take them to meet their destiny...and you just can't communicate to them what is going on. It's a feeling of betraying an old friend - even if it is the right time to take them. You can't express to them the whats and wherefores of the situation. You can only get their eyes looking at you, maybe sad eyes or happy eyes or anxious eyes, but still they are the eyes that have trusted you for all these years....that is the hardest and saddest part of letting them go.
