Sullivan

My family and I recently had our dog, Sully, put down. He was an old yellow lab, and the sweetest dog you could ever know. He just got old and thin and really didn't want to keep going. I decided to go to the vet when they gave him the shot, and I don't know if I can give you a good reason why. I like to think it was something like I needed to see the true blessing of life and the reality of death. I think that may have been part of it, but another part was just curiosity. I didn't completely know how this worked, and I guess I wanted to see death before I got there. Sully was old and sometimes he looked really sad just sitting there with his droopy eyes. Sometimes, when I was alone with him and he was sleeping, I would glance down and wait until I saw his chest rise with a breath. It sort of made me laugh when he finally breathed and I thought, "How could I be so silly? Of course he's fine!" But that one time, after they gave him that shot, I sat there and looked at his chest. He looked like he was just sleeping as usual, but he didn't move, he didn't breathe, he didn't wake up and pant back at me like, "I'm old and tired, but I'm holdin' on. Don't worry about me." I wanted the reasurrance of that little breath, the hope that, yeah he's old, but age doesn't matter with him. But it never came...