Today I had my best friend in the world euthanized.
We adopted him in 2008. I don’t know from what sad, terrible hell he came, but he had a bad case of PTSD the whole twelve years we had him. He was missing his whole entire top row of front teeth. He flinched so hard whenever a hand would suddenly come into his sight. Even after twelve years, he still expected the worst.
I think we only ever had to scold that boy maybe a happy dozen times in all those years, and he never got more than a firm pat on his little butt.
He and I didn’t really bond that first year or two. We adopted his little young wife Zooey with him, and she was gregarious and outgoing. Little John was bashful and meek. But over the years we grew closer together, especially after our first dog Speck died, and not long after that John’s little companion Zooey.
It would be an understatement to say that we were merely best friends these last few years. We were very, very close. He was my heart.
But he was very, very old, and he had become mostly blind and deaf, and his trachea was collapsing, and he had a mass pressing on his little lungs.
He hung in there for so long for us, but in the end, his little tiny body could only handle so much. He wasn’t having a very good time, and had even begin to refuse food. Unthinkable for him.
So today we let him go.
I am devastated beyond words. I am planning on drinking until my mind is gone.
Goodbye, Honey Bear. We’ll be best friends forever.
