Euphemasia

We put our dog to sleep two days before Thanksgiving. Euthanized her, rather. Put her to sleep? Euphemized her.

She was old. Cadi (pronounced like Katie). Fourteen or so. It was a difficult decision because, technically speaking, she wasn't really ill. She had arthritis and trouble getting up the stairs. Sometimes her legs just failed her completely. She was stiff, tired. In more pain than she let on, the vet said. She was almost totally deaf. She'd started pooping in the house almost every day. It was what it was. Her dignity and quality of life were running out.

It's been over a month, but I don't think we're used to her absence. In her old age she slept 23 hours a day, so we hardly noticed her anyway. But she was there. Always there. Sprawled sideways on the carpet, in a nearly unconscious sleep with her pink eyelids slightly open, her toes twitching every so often. She always retained the air of a puppy, the soft coat she had from the beginning. Other than her creaking bones and rotting gums, it was as though she never aged.

For a couple of weeks my parents joked about how it's sad that she's gone but at least there's no more dog shit to pick up! I'd shake my head at their insensitivity, but I realized this was probably harder on them than any of us. I know they are glad to be freed of dog poop duty, but I do wonder if they joke because they feel the sting of loss more acutely. They were here all along, after all. As the rest of us moved on, came and went, my parents fell asleep every night to the light breathing of a faithful companion on the floor by their bed.

My mom, my brother and I took Cadi to the vet for her final visit with the kind Dr. Kapty. My dad refused to go. Said he couldn't do it. My mom and I have done this a few times with earlier pets. There was Lily, the old springer spaniel we rescued from the pound. Our first dog. She was the sweetest thing, but it turned out she was sick and we had to put her to sleep a year later. There was Pajamas, our cranky Siamese who lived for 18 years, born the year before me. His presence in my life was constant, unquestioned, a promise. After him came Roxie, an eccentric kitten with a stub for a tail who liked to play in water and was diagnosed with feline leukemia just over a year into her little life.

But my brother had never come to those vet appointments until Cadi. He never wanted to, for reasons he didn't share. At the vet with her that day, the three of us watched her fall quickly into a drug stupor, the anesthesia softening her, freeing her of any pain or anxiety. My brother lay his big hand on her head and my mom stared blankly and said, "I can't believe this is really happening." Fourteen years is a long time. When Cadi was a new puppy sleeping curled in our laps, my brother was a little kid with bony knees and loose teeth. Now he's grown, six feet tall, covered in hair, with a voice I confuse for my father's.

There at the vet, Cadi just melted drowsily onto the blanket and lay there, a thousand miles away, until she was really gone. Still and just a body. Just fur and bones and other things I can't talk about. The little room was quiet except for our breathing. Our tears. And I realized how we've come to use the presence of these animals to measure the passing of time. Our family history punctuated by the lives and loves of our pets.

She was a good dog.