"... so if I come in this week to put her down will you be ok with it?"
It isn't the first time someone has said this to me. Asked me for grace wrapped in permission.
It always strikes me as quixotic. This asking for forgiveness to be given as a form of equal parts willing participation and peaceful acceptance. As if I hold some power I do not recognize myself.
What does my opinion matter? Why would you let anyone else's judgement cloud your own?
I always take great pause to reflect when this is directed at me.
Who am I in your pets life? What influence do I hold? Why should you care about what I think?
...and yet I surmise that I know the answer, or part of the answers, to all of these.
I have been the navigator to this girls every medical challenge and endeavor her whole life. I have been a part of every choice, decision, obstacle and surgery. There has never been a time where her life's choices haven't been discussed together. Her mom is a dear friend. She has grown into someone I adore and cherish. We did this, we grew into this, over Bella.
Maybe I am shying away from the weight of this question? Too comfortable in the minutia. The advocating for all that kept her safe and healthy, yet, deflecting cowardly when the final decision has to be made.
Maybe I am a fairweather friend? So deeply entrenched I cannot see her past myself?
Maybe I am too deep to bail out?
Too thin to save from shattering.
Too ingrained to know where the professional obligation ends and the rest of me that still adores her begins?
Maybe we are in this together and she wants me to pick sides knowing Bellas story is ending and we will still need each other on the other side. The survivors side. The remorseful, guilty, heartbroken and alone side.
Bella is now 15. A shepherd mix who was once a spry, spicy, opinionated and complex. She was calculating and discerning. A true shepherd. They love you the first time they meet you and dislike you increasingly exponentially with fervent disdain every next time. I take great pride in being the exception to this universal rule. She has tolerated me, accepted me, and I dare say even liked me, from day one to today.
Her mom tells me that she still gets excited to see me, looks for me as soon as she enters the clinic, and smiles as I approach. As I enter the room, just like every time before, she pushes her way to me and beside me. I wrap my arms around her and whisper our traditional "hello," and "I love you."
"You love her and she is dying. My opinion shouldn't matter." I told her what she needed to hear, what I truly need her to hear from me.
"I am here to help you. I am always on your side."
What I hope she knows is that Bella could have never had a better life with anyone else and I am honored, grateful and humbled to have been a part of it.
It’s times like it is that everything falls back into perspective. We are reminded about what’s important, and what isn’t. And all of the other little problems just become minutia.
Then I remembered it’s always this way. I live in this world. The world where life is fleeting and short and precious, and never to be taken for granted. That is the life of anyone in medicine and anyone who loves anyone else.
What I know is that this life I have lived, these souls I have shared it along the way with, these people at the other end of the leash, they all mattered. The reasons that people love their pets so much. They were the reasons I came here. The reasons I can't ever leave. There is purpose, and fulfillment, joy, grief and every shade of every meaningful emotion in between under this roof. It is the marrow of a lifetime that being vulnerable, honest, dedicated and absolutely completely emotionally invested without care to what that might cost you delivers. Bella is the reason we are who we are.
What I hope that others see is that its ok to throw your whole heart into something. Its ok to grieve like life will never hold its color again in the same way. It's an honor to be a part of a journey so rich and deep it changes you. Its life that is intended to hurt so you know how good it is. We are all in this together. It is what makes us so fortunate and rich. Mankind would be better off as a whole if more people had pets in their lives. Nothing else holds more influence in compassion, companionship, and community than the interdependence of sharing your life with another. They don't judge, they ask so little, and yet they reflect more kindness back than you ever invest. They keep us feeling human as we are reminded that humanity is our greatest attribute.
I don't just bear witness to these lives. We are a part of them.
