Thursday, December 18, 2008

Saying Goodbye to Susie

We were just with friends as they said goodbye to their dog Susie. Susie was 15 years old. Liver failure it appears.

So we met them at the vet clinic.

They said goodbye, we prayed, we touched. She touched us. It was hard. Painful. Saying Goodbye, even to a dog is painful. I'm not big on Anthropromorphism. It can be taken too far.

I wasn't asked the question except in my heart. When she breathed her last, where did she go?

Heaven. Hell. Purgatory of dogs?

Then I had a sense that she has returned to one who gave her life, the one who spoke her into existence. Is that a place or a being? She doesn't have eternal life or a soul as we do. She is a life none the less and when it ends somehow that constitutes a retrieval of the gift given all of us for a time on this earth. Dogs, Cats and Horses. And ants. I am not quite Albert Schweitzer in not killing insects. But I don't kill even spiders if I don't have to. Life. Precious. A Gift.

She was 105 in people years. Pretty old for dog or person.

Still painful, lots of tears. Lots of goodbye. She was a good dog, liked to come visit me and sit by my chair. I will miss her. But the pain of Goodbye won't allow me to have one again as a pet.

Susie, you were a good dog.

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