Letting Go

We had to let Leike go yesterday.

She's been on a slow decline all summer long.  We made a conscious choice to let her age at home, and when the time came we would try to do what was necessary.

I had been watching her weaken for weeks, and I vaguely hoped that I would just wake up one morning and she would have quietly passed during the night.  But that didn't happen.

She had been acting oddly the night before, but I didn't think much of it.  Every day was different with her all summer.  But when we came back from taking the kids to their doctor appointments, she was listless and unable to make eye-contact.  She couldn't walk far and was struggling to breathe. 

And that's when I felt like an enormous coward.  I should have called the vet weeks ago, but I just couldn't bear to let her go just because she was OLD.  She's still my friend, no matter how old she is!  But watching her struggle to breathe was just horrible, so I called the vet. 

Chris took the day off of work, we took the babies up to Sherry's and took Leike down to the vet.  By this point she couldn't even hold her head up.  They thought she was probably in acute kidney failure and some cardiac distress.  The vet was really lovely.  The left me alone with her to say good-bye.  It was nice to be able to thank her for being such a lovely friend to me for so long.

She laid her head in my hand and slipped quietly away. 

What I really want to remember is the way she would lay across whatever book I was reading as if she was absorbing great literature by osmosis.  And how she slept between my feet every night for 14 years.  How she loved bedtime with the Boy and would cuddle us both while we read and told stories together.  And her kamakaze leg-rubs, she would charge your legs and rub up against them so hard, if you didn't have your feet, she could knock you over.

But right now I'm practicing letting go.




I have a lot of stories and pictures to share with all of you.  Last week was our big family reunion and 50th wedding anniversary party for my parents.  Those stories are coming.  I promise.