First, to set the mood....a song...

First, I want to clarify something....I don't feel anger about this any longer, but it took me quite some time to not.  What I feel is hurt, a deep hurt....and, hopefully, if you're a fellow dog lover, you will understand why.  I just need to write this down; I hope that it will help aid in my healing over this issue.

When I was little, around 6, or so, we got a Cocker Spaniel puppy and we named her Mitzi.  My childhood is FULL of memories with her in them.  We even bred her 4 times and enjoyed baby puppies (22 of them, to be exact).  You can imagine, that this sweet dog was most definitely an integral part of my growing up.  She lived to be, I think, around 14 or 15 years old (people years, of course), before she died.  Towards the end of her life she was blind and deaf and very obese.  She was this chubby little Cocker with such a beautiful and sweet disposition, and, as long as we didn't move around the furniture, she didn't do too bad at getting around!  She gave love just as freely at the end of her life as she did when we first got her...more so, even.  (Doesn't love grow when it's nurtured?)

I grew up and left home to be a nanny for a year.  I lived only miles away, but in a different city.  One day I came home and Mitzi wasn't there.  I asked my mom and she didn't say anything, and I didn't really think much of it.  I thought perhaps she was outside.  So I let it go.  Then a few days later when I was there again, I again, asked what happened to her, and joked that my mom had taken her to the vet to have her put to sleep.  Again, silence from my mom.  When I looked at her, I knew that that was the correct answer.  She had, in fact, taken Mitzi to the vet and had her put down.  Now, I don't know if Mitzi was sick, or if the vet suggested that she do it due to quality of life, I don't know, and my mom has never been terribly clear about the whole thing.  But whatever it was, Mitzi had given us 14 years of her life.  When I prompted my mom, she told me that she had taken Mitzi to the vet and left her there before she was put down.  THAT is the part that hurts me.  Mitzi is the only family pet that we ever had, whom we didn't bury in the backyard.  I don't understand.  And what I REALLY don't understand is how my mom could have just LEFT Mitzi there, in a strange, cold, sterile environment, surrounded by strangers, in her final moments.  She just LEFT her there...after Mitzi gave us so many years of her LIFE...never leaving our side, always there when we needed to cry, or a hug, or just the contact of warm love...  My mom just left her there.  Abandoned in her final breaths of life.  And she didn't even want the body to bury her.  She just...threw her out like a piece of trash.

What I don't understand is how my mom, who is an animal lover like myself, although maybe not as extreme, could do that?  I sit here, with tears falling down my face and my mini dog snuggling up to me with a very concerned look on her face, just uncomprehending of such an act.  As hard, and as heart breaking as it will be when we lose our babies, we will always be there, by their sides, until the very end.  I can't imagine not being there.  After all of the love, tears, hugs, kindness, understanding, consolation, and acceptance that they've shown us....how can we think about NOT being there???

OK, maybe I am still a bit bitter about the whole thing.  I think about it every so often, and it just makes it hurt all over again...like the proverbial bandaid ripping off of a wound.  My heart hurts for Mitzi's fear and terror, being left in such a cold place with her family nowhere near, unable to see or hear, abandoned and alone.  Why on earth did my mom do such a thing?  I've tried asking her about it a few times, but she never gives me any straight answers.  Perhaps that is why I'm unable to leave it in the past.

I don't want my mom to think that this is an attack on her or her present character as we all grow and learn from past mistakes, and I'm almost certain she's learned from this particular one, but it's lived in me, festering, bubbling up from time to time, and this anger takes over, quickly overcome with hurt and sadness that it happened at all.

Mitzi, I know you're waiting for me on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, no pain, full sight and hearing restored, playing with your other friends, there.  I can only hope that you can forgive me for not being there...for surely I would have been, had I known.  I would not have deserted you in the end.  To you, I dedicate this song....