As most of you know, we had to take our "permanent foster" dog to the vet for the last time. She was 14-15 years old, with a mass on her liver pressing her stomach to where she could eat any more. She went from bouncing around like a lunatic to plodding and sleeping all the time in just a few weeks. We knew - painful as it was - that it was time to let her go.
I am reminded of this as our best ex-president ever - President Jimmy Carter - decided to forgo any further medical treatment and embrace home hospice care. Like our pets, we think they'll always be there, and then... and then you realize they won't be. No thing and no person lives forever, and their absence leaves a hole in the lives of those we love. At a certain age (or a certain point in a disease), it's pretty clear there's no "recovery" to a standard of living we set for ourselves, our loved ones, and our pets.
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