My beloved buttercup, my precious petunia, my sweet snapdragon, my darling daffodil...

He was awake most of last night and started having plumbing issues this afternoon.  My heart is breaking.  I cannot see trying to get him well just for another week or so or however long.  I begged my puppydog to just make it through the festival or at least to my birthday on Thursday.  But he cannot.  He cannot.

Right now, we are waiting for a vet to come put him to sleep.  He's driving back from Baltimore, so some time tonight or early tomorrow.  I have been sobbing ever since I made the call.  Sobbing and throwing up.  I have already used my nebulizer and epipen.  Crying does not help asthma.  Anguish doesn't help multiple sclerosis.

I am not sure how to survive this.  I mean, Christ is bigger.  I know that.  I just don't feel that.  All I feel is despair at the thought of having to come home from that wretched job and no longer have my puppydog to greet me, wagging his tail and carrying one of his babies in his mouth.

Oh, Kashi, how foolishly I love you!

• Fifteen years.
• Four chronic diseases.
• Five moves.
  
• Walking away from being a professor.
• Enduring joblessness.
  
• Facing the vileness of humanity.
• Battling the confusion born from finding pure teaching and losing my parish.

Not a single solitary day did you fail to greet me with such love and utter enthusiasm.  You forgave me when I forgot to feed you and when I was too tired to take you on the walks you crave. 

Your favorite word is "mine!"  You were as persnickety as I.  Managing your disease helped me face mine.  I never grew tired of watching you sleep, all curled in a ball with your nose tucked between your paws.  Your puppy dreams made me chuckle and the way you would try to sneak past me when you had something you weren't supposed to made me burst into laughter.  We were afraid together, you of storms and sirens and lightening, me of...

It wasn't supposed to be this way.  I wasn't supposed to be alone.  He was supposed to be held by a vet who has loved him and sat on the floor to play with him for years.  Not a stranger.  Not alone.

But...I have always been alone.  I shouldn't have expected anything else.

Watching him sleep right now...waiting...oh, how can I do this?  How can I survive yet another loss...now?


I am Yours.  Save me!