A final act of love.

I think that knowing was the worst part of yesterday.

Awhile ago Mario and I heard a woman from hospice give a talk. She made a comment along the lines of: everyone needs a reason to wake up on the last day of their life. She's right. We tried to give Bailey lots of reasons to wake up on the last day of his life. We snuggled, went for car rides, and gave him as much love as we could.

And then it was time. Loading Bailey into the red van for the last time and driving him to the vet was awful. We knew where he was going and why but he just kept smiling at us. Unloading him from the red van for the last time was awful too. And checking in. And going into the examination room with his favorite blanket knowing that he would not come back out with us.

Our vet rocked. He re-explained the entire process, talked to us about grief, assured us that this was the best decision for Bailey, and then he cried with us.

We all sat on the floor and I put part of his blanket on my lap. When it was time for the injection he crawled on to my lap. I held him close, Mario sat next to me and held his head, and three seconds later he was peacefully gone.

Dr. Blaes confirmed that his heart stopped and left us alone with the knowledge that we could stay as long as we needed to.

It was so hard take his body out of my lap. The only thing I knew how to do was to love him and hold him. And even though I knew he was gone I didn't want to let go of him. So we just sat together, held his body and cried together.

When we were ready Mario helped transfer him out of my lap and we wrapped him up entirely in his blanket. We left the room and walked out of the vet into the afternoon sun with a gigantic hole in our hearts.

Not quite ready to face the world we headed for the lake at Clemson Extension. We walked, held hands, listened to the silence, exchanged a few words, stopped for hugs, and continued to cry.

Today I packed up all of his stuff and we have it ready to donate to Project Pet. I went to the pet store and returned the abundance of specialty wet food I bought last week in hopes of enticing him to eat more. The sales clerk handling the return asked, "Did your dog not like the Wellness food?" I could only get out that "he died."

Thankfully we have many memories to soothe our minds and the knowledge that Bailey is no longer suffering here on earth. His body will be cremated and returned to us in a box within the next two weeks.

In the meantime we have distractions like summer vacation in New Hampshire and Wesley's third birthday. He turns three on Tuesday and even though he really wants a puppy we just aren't ready. Maybe when he turns five. Or thirty five.