Calling Long Distance
I wake with a start. Something isn’t right. No matter the hour, I need to call. Grabbing the phone, I dial Dad’s area code. I can’t remember his number. I panic. This makes no sense. We talk every Sunday. Tears flood my eyes. Truth pierces. It’s been nearly a year, since he died. Yet, he […]
Her Reflection
Her eyes smile at the corners. Her whole face is a smile. Even at rest, she exudes joy. Contentment. Comfort in her own skin. Her fingers expertly search the counter for deodorant, toothpaste, a hairbrush. These are the items she uses daily, quickly, to prepare to face another day. She’s half dressed, leaving her shirt until the last preparations have been finished. Almost imperceptibly, she takes the smallest moment to check her appearance in the mirror. Her eyes dart from her brushed out wave of curls to her chest where a long maroon scar peeks from her bra. In one fluid
Does it Ever Get Easy?
We have become better at helping our pets live. We have not become equally good at letting them go. As a veterinary internist for more than thirty-five years, I’ve helped thousands of people make one of the hardest decisions they’ll ever face: when to stop treating and let a beloved animal die. Surprisingly, that decision has become more difficult. Not because veterinary medicine has failed us. Quite the opposite. It has succeeded. Forty years ago, the human-animal bond existed, but it didn’t even have a name. Today, our pets sleep in our beds, accompany us on vacations, they have insurance policies
Blaze for Days
“You have two choices,” the vet said. “You can either put him to sleep, or bring him tonight for emergency surgery, and he might not survive.” That was the day I brought him in for what I thought was a stomachache. I did not expect that diagnosis. We weren’t ready. I didn’t want him to go under the knife when he might not even survive it. Dying alone on a cold slab with a bunch of strangers. Blaze had spleen cancer, and other tumors in his body along with internal bleeding. The vet said he wasn’t really suffering. He was in
