I thought each breath would be his last
As we stared in silent apprehension,
Willing the tears to leave
As his breaths grew more and more shallow
And further and further apart
Until I stroked his mangy coat for one last time
And he released his last strangled breath.
*Is this what it's like to die?

In my white tights, I watched
Dad cry in our kitchen.
He rested on the sink,
Palms sweating and white-knuckled.
We heard Mikey by the door
Ask dad politely
With a defeated whisper
For a comforting pat,
A silent scratch behind old
Folded skin on his Rottweiler ear.

The home phone, chunky and beige,
Laid face down on the wooden counter
Soaked in saline.
Dad was to take Mikey
To the vet in the evening,
Bring him home, cold and cancerous,
And rub his webbed, iced toes
Between index and ring
In a fleeting moment, one last time.
But he never picked up the phone.
It laid dormant, an incessant hum
In Dad’s brain, radiating to the base of his spine.
Instead we each
Kissed Mikey’s brow,
Smushed his extinguishing face
In our palms,
Turning off the lamps.

Mom took off my untwirled tutu,
Putting unmatching pajamas on me.
We forgot to pray, both pirouetting
Thoughts between our fingers
Of what death is like.

I woke up to French toast
And my answer
Served on a blue plastic plate -
A smudge of tear on the rim.
The phone lay on the counter
Crusted in salt, adjacent
To Mikey’s frayed and rusted collar.

One day, Hunter, our family dog of 9 years, died while he was sleeping. My wife and I, were devastated by the loss, and were worried how it would impact our ten-year-old son, Vincent.

Since Hunter was his first dog, and they were inseparable -- we weren’t sure how we would approach such a delicate topic, with such a young child. Finally, that afternoon we decided to be honest, and just let him know that Hunter had passed, peacefully, in his sleep -- then try to comfort him.

That same night, we told Vincent what had happened to Hunter. We weren’t sure if he understood that he would never be able to see Hunter again, and that there was nothing we could do to change that  -- but to our amazement,  he was surprisingly calm. And as we explained it to him,that Hunter was no longer with us, he seemed to get calmier.

To our surprise, while tucking Vincent into bed, we noticed that he was handling the news better than we were. In fact, as he reached up and gave his mother a huge hug, it seemed like he was comforting us more than we could, him.

As we were dimming his room light, he asked if we could have pancakes, Hunter’s favorite,for breakfast in the morning. We look at each other smiled. then agreed. We blew him a kiss goodnight, and we wandered off to bed.

The next morning, during breakfast, we noticed that Vincent was back to his cheerful self, rushing down the stairs and dashing to the table, to join us for pancakes. As I watched him, wrestling with the cap of the syrup, It seemed like he had come to his own understanding of what had happened to Hunter -- which he eagerly explained it to us, as he drenched his stack of pancakes with maple syrup,

“When Hunter was a little puppy, we took him away from his Mother. It must have been very sad day for her, because she loved him with all of her heart -- just like we do. And just like us, she wasn’t ready for him to leave -- but we still took him away to a beautiful new home, to be with his new family, far away from her. He grew up to be a big strong dog that loved and protected us, the same way his Mother did her family.” he continued explaining,

“And since Hunter is such a special dog, the whole time he was with us, his Mother must have been praying that he would come back to her someday, so she could be happy again.  Nine years ago, God answered our prayers by giving us Hunter. Last night, he finally answered hers, by giving him back.”

He said, “And even though we loved him,  and we weren’t ready for him to leave --  God had to give Hunter back to his Mother, to live in their beautiful new home, Heaven. Where they can grow old together, loving and protecting the way they did us. It okay to be sad, but God had to take him, because we wouldn’t have been able to let him go on our own.”

As I listened, stunned by what he had just heard. I looked over at my wife, struggling to hold back her tears. In that moment, we both realized, that our ten-year-old son had just given us the comfort we wanted to give him.

My life is kinda sad
I have friends, but only a few
One is a cat and the other three are  my dogs
Well, that's all and it's nothing new.