M and I both cried today talking about Gus. For him the pain goes deep; after spending all that time in doctor’s offices, emergency hospitals, specialists’ exam rooms with Gus and then to have him die in the hospital in the middle of the night of a snow storm with neither of us there is just so heartbreaking.
That day, before M took him in again, the Mucinex had started to clear his breathing for the first time in months. I sat with him on the edge of the bathtub with the hot water blasting steam to help and there was something strangely still about him. Some light had gone out... At the hospital they said they just needed to get his blood glucose up; we should leave him overnight so they could monitor him and at 11:30 that night the phone rang. “Do you want us to continue trying to resuscitate him?” they asked.... How are you supposed to answer that question?
I can still feel what he felt like: the glassy smooth coat, the spring in his legs, his ribs when I held him with one arm. I can see his little ski slope muzzle and the way he hopped around when he got excited. Exquisite little Gus who always looked so much bigger to me than he was....
He was the most beautiful Papillion I have ever seen.... I think I will always miss him.
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