My dead dog.

I dreamt of my dog last night. It has been exactly six
months since I made that awful decision to put him down. He was deaf, crippled,
and going blind. I had spent the last months of his life in denial of his
condition and constantly cleaning up his incontinence. When I went to work I
would have to line the floor with newspaper and still would come home to
messes. Finally, when all he could do was eat, sleep, and spin in circles, I
decided it was time. It took everything I had to walk into the vet’s office and
hold my dog as the injection was administered. I would have been okay if all my
dog did was go to sleep peacefully, but he didn’t. He whined and cried as the
medication took effect. He hadn’t uttered a whimper for two months previous.
Finally, after what seemed like minutes, he went limp in my arms and I put him
onto the table. I looked at his lifeless body with his blind eyes open wide,
and then went outside to sob. It was only the second time in my ten years of
marriage that my wife had seen me cry. I spent the remainder of that day
throwing away my dog’s things, except for his collar which I put away in a box.

So, why am I telling you this? Because I just wrote that
scene into my latest book, turning that negative into a positive. Although my
dog of fifteen years is gone now, his memory will live on.

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