Sophie’s last morning.

Some day this house will feel way too quiet. In some ways, it already does. Today, I am trying to appreciate and even relish the hysterical loud barking.

My Sophie girl is gone. When we got up yesterday, she couldn’t keep her legs under her. She couldn’t stay standing and when she managed to get up, she seemed confused and went in circles. I knew immediately that this was … it. The end.

Dammit! Why couldn’t she just curl up in my lap, fall asleep and not wake up?

I called the vet and explained very calmly that this wasn’t probably an emergency (denial?), but that something was wrong and I wanted to bring her in that day. I had two hours to sit with her and NOT think about what I knew I was probably going to do.

And it was horrible. I can’t even write about it yet. But I’ll tell you this:

It’s given me lots to FEEL, lots to think about and probably a hell of a lot to write about.  And I will.

I haven’t written here in several weeks, maybe months. I’ve been busy transitioning out of a year of sloth, pondering and napping and doing yoga, to juggling two part time jobs, two contract gigs and managing a political campaign… THIS is not the kind of X-treme living I was aiming for!

It’s time to pare down again, feel, think and write.

Writing is my way of working through all the possibilities, all the possible meanings. I’ve still been journaling in a notebook, but that’s just providing for the raw outpouring of my stream of consciousness… it’s not working things out. It’s getting things out. It’s like wiping the slate so I can get on with my important busy-ness.

So, you will see more writing again I think.

I wanted to write about Sophie — what I’ve learned, what she taught me, what it was like to decide her fate, the moral dilemma around choosing to end suffering — whose? Hers? Mine?

There will be time.

I leave you with this: Barking times two. Meet Dusty!

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