This Monday….I was quiet. Tuesday at the am faculty meeting I couldn’t look anyone in the eye, plus the impossible task of reading evaluations was stressed. I don’t really remember Wednesday, and today, I felt FAR more ahead than behind. Here is my “Wall of Sanity”. That is my brother’swagon on top, that he used to pull me around in when I was 6.
I have a very good friend overseas, who has only known an “online” Gerry, as we got to know each other.. She has become irreplaceable to me.
I find that I’m not listening to any music on the 50 minute drive from work in the morning…I feel like being observant, thankful, mindful, and concentrate on the crazy drivers around me. I don’t miss Gerry then, nor when I get in the car at the end of the day.
It isn’t until I pull into the driveway that it slowly seeps into my heart…..
It isn’t until I wake in the morning (still early enough to take him outside) and walk downstairs to the “Geryr is waiting for me on the bed or couch, and we HAVE to get outside SOON,” Then I take some breaths and get ready for work…….
Coming home last night to an empty house, as David is away this weekend, was lonely. I usually LOVE to get to be by myself, but I HAVEN’T been by myself. Alone became to mean, Just Gerry and me time….THAT was hard…and not much better this morning…Time to refocus.
Goof ball Gerry running to me once I convinced him there were no more birds.
These are priceless..just as he was.
..because the sound of his moaning and cough was more than I could bear on Sunday, I called the doctor and she was able to come at 10 a.m. today, Tuesday. She, thankfully recommended I get him some pain medicine and I was able to stay home on Monday to get him a strong anti-inflammatory, and some pain killers from his vet.. I gave him the second 1/2 of the anti-inflammatory before we went to bed so he could hopefully sleep better. Good choice. It’s the first morning he hasn’t moaned himself awake. He and I were able to talk and snuggle like usual, and I said my third version of ‘good bye”. We were all blessed that he not only had a good morning, but that he he had a GREAT morning with an egg and bacon and lots of company, JUST like last night, from our neighbors.
Gerry Boy: Loved from 2011-2017
“…You were only waiting for this moment to arise. Blackbird fly, blackbird fly, into the light of the dark black night…”
I SWEAR, I’m truly not trying to be be cheesy, by putting this song on this post…TRULY. I was born in 1968 (if that helps validate my embarrassed reason for picking the song to go with this entry.)
Gerry lived for three years in Texas for the first 3 years of his life, of which I have NO idea what happened to him exactly, but have seen all the burns and scars and kissed them relentlessly..and that he “made it through and made it” to a vet, (named Gerald) and then a foster mom for four months, and then AT LAST to me, his TRUE mom, I can’t think of a better song, truly.
(This was taken in 2011 when we first began to love each other.)
Believe me. I don’t want to write this post, except in a “get it all out” of the way.
You can’t hear him cough. You can’t hear him struggling to breath as if he’s just been running, but hasn’t. You don’t see him struggle to hop.
You don’t feel his heart racing for no reason.
You can’t see him ignore his food (eggs with cheese, chicken, burger,…), even if I try to hand feed it to him.
So I know you’ll understand.
I called a doctor today, who will euthanize him here at my home on Wednesday evening. I’m blessed to be legally allowed to bury him on my property, and that’s what I intend to do. My neighbor and David will dig me a hole on my land that Gerry and I used to look at ALL the time from our bedroom window.Than we’ll roll a huge dead tree trunk near there, so we’ll all have a place to sit and visit and talk.
I am not waiting anymore for him to look or sound worse..or worst yet, not be able to tell me he feels pain, exhausted or “not right, Mom.” He’s a solider who won’t report a THING wrong to me. And since, “my heroes have always been cowboys” (see Pinterest under Danielle S.) I want him to leave this world with pride and dignity.
He’s just not himself. He moans in a “bad” way lately when I pet his head, and I just don’t want him to feel pain , like the bone cancer, that I didn’t know ANYTHING about.
I’m taking the day off from work on Wednesday so I can spend the day with him, and then will have Thursday and Friday off for Jewish holidays and the weekend to be with my parents in Rhode Island .
The doctor is going to have to come in the evening, which I’m actually glad about. I’ll get a fire in our dug out pit going, (as will my net door neighbors who love him like he’s their own) and we’ll have a ceremony of sorts outside.
I’d also planned to visit my dad in RI this weekend for his 79th birthday (originally with Ger),but I still intend too travel, just solo. I think I may need my mom and dad..since they’re still here with me, and have gone through “this” sadness themselves many times
When I call Gerry “my boy”, I mean it in the MOST sincerest of ways. I don’t recall if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I don’t have any children of my own. (I think it makes me ABLE to be a public school teacher…but that’s anther story.) He had a REALLY GOOD day today. Can you see his tail in motion?
I don’t know if I’ve ever written that I knew, at an early age, that just I didn’t really want to have children of “my own”, despite enjoying them. I just knew. In the late 1980’s that wasn’t a popular or “believable” response, when you were asked. I (am proud to say) always stayed true to myself and my strong belief.
Thus! When I reached age 43, sadly had to leave my husband and was divorced, YET still teaching, and finally found a house that a dog would love, was delayed a year due to bunion surgery, I found Gerry online, (we saved each other) and he became “my boy”.
Every decision I have to make lately makes me more aware that people don’t understand that he is my boy.
Mom has posted that funny picture,it truly was an EXCITING moment for her, andI want you to know that she has been so busy lately. She always has morning time for ME though, to pet time awake. Mom thinks that
I’ll only want to pee in the a.m. unlike ANY other school year. I ave’t heard her complain, because I always take my morning pills and have hchicken broth ice cubes afterwards.
I think I DID freak her and Dad out a little bit this week when I didn’t do big business for 3 days! I ate my first real hamburger last night and I definitely had big business to do this moning!
