animal friends

It took all three of us to lift Luke up on the gurney. His anguished, frail body had given up. Big, soft, brown eyes looked to me, so gentle and calm…this Great Dane, this massive and brittle creature in my embrace. I wondered how and why it had gotten to this point. As we struggled to find a comfortable position for his leg to be x-rayed, the exigency of the reality whispered to me, the weightiness of the moment seemed heavy. He with his warm resolve, whimpered only a little on the cold, clinical table, his leg looking as if it had swallowed a cantaloupe whole. Instead it was the well-known, ever popular, dark looming cancer eating him alive, consuming his simple, happy life. Luke couldn’t walk on it anymore. He couldn’t eat. This Great Dane, this Great Dog was sick, and still his temperament remained sweet and kind, silently stoic, using what energy he could to barely nuzzle his nose into me for affection. It’s times like these, I marvel at the spirit of animals. They are amazing in the very most literal of terms. Their eyes tell us so much about their personalities--indeed they are windows into their souls. Their body language shows us who they are in a different way--what they want. They are all unique beings and so very extraordinary.

There is a grace in what we can do for them in their pain. Lamentably, we must sit back and watch our human spirits deteriorate in agony until life/sickness/etc. runs its course, but we can help our animal friends leave their pain. There is something peaceful in that.  The pain in losing what we love is our heartbreak, an enormous heartache, but we free the ones we love from a suffering we cannot know.

Luke was allowed that grace. I too, have had to make that choice. I believe it is one of the greatest forms of love we are capable of.

For my animal friends…of all kinds…the life you live brings me joy beyond measure.