(no subject)
It still doesn't seem real. Despite my best efforts to attempt to get it all out for the moment before I went to bed last night, I still cried myself to sleep. For a moment this morning, before I opened my eyes, I'd forgotten, and then it hit me again. It was like being punched in the gut. I cried this morning while I got ready for work, but I did better at work today than I did yesterday, and only had to slip away to the restroom once. I barely made it to the parking lot after work, though, and cried like a baby in my car for over 15 minutes before I could drive home. The Blazer still smells like him, and the seats are still folded flat from where I took him to the clinic Monday afternoon. I'm glad Daddy took his leash and blanket out of the Blazer Tuesday evening, or I'd probably still be in the parking lot. It just doesn't seem possible that I'll never see him again, that he won't be waiting for me when I walk through their door tomorrow. He's been staying inside at my parents' place, because between the heart failure and his arthritis, he'd never make it into the house here, let alone up the 15 stairs to my floor. Tomorrow I would have walked in with a giant bone, or a new pillow, or whatever treat I'd picked up this time for him, and watch him forget all about his arthritis momentarily while he scrambled up as quickly as he could from the floor to come greet me and demand that I pet him or brush him until my arm gave out. I still have to go over tomorrow, to check on my Mom and visit, but it's going to be so damned hard. I told them I'd start looking for an area rug to replace the one in the livingroom that he's been lying on the past several months. After this past weekend, no amount of cleaning is going to salvage it. I guess I'll look around for one when I go out to find something to put his ashes in. That ought to be a fun shopping trip. For now, though, I have to make it through tomorrow. Picking up his ashes, and then seeing not only the grief on my parents' faces, but sitting there in a house that smells like him, and is full of his leashes and toys and collars and pillows, and all the stuff he loved to eat...the huge bags of pig ears, the boxes of rice they got to go with the rotisserie chickens they'd pick up for him at least twice a week, the big cartons of yogurt in the fridge, which he loved, and helped to settle his stomach. The bottles of medication that he no longer needs.
I know this is the price you have to be willing to pay whenever you choose to love, and he was worth it...I wouldn't trade one single moment I had with him to ease the pain...but oh, God, the price feels so high right now. I hope the day comes soon when I stop second guessing everything that I did, and wondering "what if". I just want him back so damned badly. I want so desperately for this to all have just been a horrible dream, but I know when I wake up in the morning, my pillowcase will be damp, and he'll still be gone.
I know this is the price you have to be willing to pay whenever you choose to love, and he was worth it...I wouldn't trade one single moment I had with him to ease the pain...but oh, God, the price feels so high right now. I hope the day comes soon when I stop second guessing everything that I did, and wondering "what if". I just want him back so damned badly. I want so desperately for this to all have just been a horrible dream, but I know when I wake up in the morning, my pillowcase will be damp, and he'll still be gone.