buying time, and hoping (what?)
A week of dog sorrow. How can I even imagine ending a life? I can’t. One level of my consciousness can…but only as a shadowy abstraction – an I-know-people-do-that kind of thing – and only for a few moments at a time. If I actually imagine it, I break down. Walking to work, riding the train, staring at my computer at work, talking to one of the few people who know what’s going on. I literally cannot acknowledge this is going on when I’m at work because I would lose it. And that is not at all a place you want to lose it.
But Romy, you get another chance…the doctors say you could start improving next week; it’s possible. But if you don’t, it’s probably not. And our lives – all of them – have become a mess. This is not what anybody had in mind, but in the place where we are – oh, yes, this has to do with New York, the city that takes dogs from me – it is many times harder. If you were an “outside” dog in the country in Tennessee, things might be different. If you were 4 instead of 8, if you and Doxy got along at all, if I worked at home, if we had a yard, if we’d had you for 7 years not 1 month…Why do you growl at me at night, when I pet you? I want you to be better, I want you to be healthy, I want you to be happy, I want you and Doxy to get along, I want you to be released from your complete obsession with water, I want you to be friendly and close, I want you to live, I want to love you, I want to be a better person, I want to want you.
I grow horns and a pointed tail. My vet, my cousin (also a vet), my mother all try to convince me it’s ok to consider this, it’s probably best. But how do I get to decide this? I want all of this to go away and you to just be a dog, one who is free, one who is loved.
shelly
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