I know how you feel, 5 times over. I've had to say goodbye forever to 5 of my beloved dogs since 1996. It never gets easier and time hasn't healed the wounds very much. I still miss them all terribly and count the days weeks and even the hours since they entered and left my life. They are all 5 buried in the backyard and I visit them often, especially on the days when they passed, which is on 5 different days of the week.
Example: Today is Friday, so as I write and post this, its been 222 Fridays ago, or 37,300 hours, or 4.25 years ago when Sheena, "my little happy face", a Chow/Eskimo mix, had to be put to sleep because of a cancerous tumor on her spleen on the last day of summer, September 22, 2017. I adopted her almost 10 years ago (March 10th, 2012) and because she was an older dog, I only had her for almost exactly 5 and a half years to the day, a total of 2,022 days. April 2023, she will be gone for as long as I had her. She captured my heart in ways I didn't think possible. She was so puppy-like, playing and jumping around the living room, making me laugh, even after discovering she had developed a tumor. I was so heartbroken and felt so helpless that there was really nothing that could be done. Surgery wasn't really an option because her age put her at risk of dying on the operating room table. If she didn't, she would have a long road to recovery, and a diminished quality of life. I couldn't do that to her, only to have cancer form again. So her fate was sealed, I would lose her soon like the others. I could not imagine my life without her. I was with her when she was given a sedative first and a few minutes later, at 10:28am, after a 30 second injection of N, our bond was broken, she was gone without a sound at the age of about 12 and a half. I was envious of her. I wanted to go into oblivion with her. I still do.
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Months later, I had a dream, a very vivid dream. I was standing out in an open sunlit field or meadow, no people, no trees, no bushes, just grass and wildflowers, and low rolling hills. Very calm and peaceful, quiet and tranquil. But the colors were saturated, the grass was greener than green and the cloudless sky was bluer than blue. I could feel the gentle wind blowing through my hair and it was not cold or hot, but just right. I was wondering where I was and how I got here as I scanned the horizon and soon I see a little white dot appear far away and it is coming closer. As it came closer I could begin to recognize it was Sheena! She was racing over the grass and wildflowers, running as fast as her legs could carry her! Then behind her, another white dot appeared and it was my previous Chow Chow dog, Kahlua! And behind her, an orangy dot came charging over the horizon line and it was my first Chow Chow dog, Boo Boo Bear! And bringing up the rear was my little childhood dog Filipa a long haired Dachshund, all of them running towards me, greeting me with hysterical delight, wagging tails, licking tongues, and reaching out with their paws to touch me and I was so happy to see them all that I was crying tears of joy at this unexpected reunion. It is like they were all waiting for me on the other side. I thought maybe that is where I was, I had died and they were as happy to see me as I was them as they all seemed to say "what took you so long?! We've been waiting for you!" But then everything suddenly faded away and went dark and I could sort of feel myself rising up and back to consciousness. I awoke in my bed, actually crying, with tears stinging my eyes that I needed to wipe them away with a tissue. I felt so strange, that I wondered if it was real or a dream and for the rest of that day, I had a deep sense of sadness as I could not get that dream, or whatever it was, out of my mind. I still think of that dream from time to time and it still makes me cry. Both out of joy and sadness.
I had another Chow/Retriever mix, a handsome boy named Harley, still living then. He died also in September, but in 2020, 3 years after Sheena died. He was on the floor on his right side sleeping, I came over to him, petted him and he reach out with his front leg, in stretching motion, I was like good boy, got up and sat at the computer just 6 feet away and 10 minutes later, I went to check on him and I noticed he wasn't breathing anymore. He had simply died without a whimper where he lay. Perhaps he was dying when he reached out with his paw as I petted him? He had been suffering from hip dysplasia for about a year and a half and was getting weaker in his hind legs, but still kind of mobile, and eating/drinking. I was fearing his final days were coming and he would need to be put to sleep too, but he died on his own, at the age of 13.
Year after my Sheena died, my mother began to show signs of Alzheimer's disease. So I started to lose when she started to lose her mind and memory. My mother broke her hip in March and has been in a long-term care facility for the past 9 months. 3 days ago I was told she has developed deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot in her thigh. She may need surgery or "let nature take its course". So I am on the verge of losing my mother forever too.
I feel all life is pointless. Our "reward" for a long life is sickness and death. Everything we have in our life will eventually be lost. Does not matter if it was given to us or if we earn it with our own effort. We lose our grandparents, our parents, our pets, our friends (they move away, have a falling out, or die), we lose our siblings and/or children (if any, when they move away or die), we lose our jobs/careers (get laid off, retire, economy changes, etc..), we lose our money (most older people have lost theirs to taxes, inflation and/or swindlers), we lose our homes (to fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, foreclosure, lawsuits, etc...), we lose our spouse (divorce or death), we lose our youth, our health, some may lose their memories, and eventually, we ALL lose our lives. Life is just one long string of losses. No matter what you try to do to live as long and as healthy as you can, you will still die. All we do in this life is kill time until time kills us.
