She Was With Us Until She Wasn't

The two Grand Dames, as we liked to call Maggy and Grandma.

She was a class act, right to her very last breath at around 9:30 a.m. today.

I've replayed the last couple of days and especially the last few hours over and over, wondering if there was something I missed or something more I could have done. The early morning walk, usually our longest of the day, was made shorter because she didn't seem in the mood. I wonder now if that last walk was more for me than for her.

She ate a few bitefuls of her last breakfast, maybe to be polite. A little later she asked to go out the rear sliding glass door, but I couldn't let her loose in the condo like I could at the old house. So when she went too far, I quietly called her back and she listened to me, ignoring what her canine soul was instructing. She walked back into the house and laid down in her dog bed.

I am so sorry for the way I broke the news to Louise and Rolly. I am so sorry that she couldn't die with her own family and that her last days weren't even in a familiar neighborhood, mine or theirs. But she could have passed in the back of our car on the way to the emergency animal hospital instead of our living room, surrounded by people who loved her and pampered her and did everything to comfort her even after the vet on the phone told me there was nothing more we could do.

Now that I've had a little distance in the day, I realize it was a privilege to be the one with her as she passed with such grace and unselfishness. Rest in peace, Maggy.