Witnessing

Life leaves those
you love at
its own pace, in
its own way:

the brief violence
of injury, the
cataclysmic failure
of brain or heart.

Both to be preferred,
you think now, to

the implacable tick
of illness, rogue cells
propagating, occupying
a vanishing vitality.

After a time, you wish
to find him dead,
gone in his sleep

before he becomes
too much
not himself.

You come to envy
the brief violence,
the cataclysmic failure,

anything but the
attenuating sickness,
the inexorable insult
to his faultless form,

which compels your
ragged attention — the
hollowing flanks,  the
uncertain gait —

the ruthless implications
of the failing body you
admired so

in the fullness of
its grace, its beauty.
How warm and welcome
his weight in your lap,

your grateful hand
plying his soft fur;
the resonant rumble.

You would take his
place now to spare him
the difficult disappearing

but also to end this
bleak, brutal witnessing,
the perpetual calculus

of what goodness
remains and what
is fled,

your bleary eyes
straining
and straining
to perceive the

moment of mercy,
for him;
for you.

 

A year since I made the decision to euthanize my beautiful boy Spot; somehow, I did not anticipate I would still miss him so much.  This repeat post goes out to everyone who is now making — or who has made, or will make — the difficult decision to end a beloved animal’s life.  And to all the animals no longer present, who in the years of their health and vitality gave us so much love, comfort and delight. 

 

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Tags: animals, cats, creative writing, dogs, dying, euthanasia, pets, poem, poetry, sickness, spirituality