For me, February is not a month of love. 
It is, instead, a month of death. And a month of remembering the dead. 

Of course, there have only been vastly significant deaths in my life to date: my grandfather and my dog. 
This, I realize, is retarded. People have suffered immeasurably greater amounts than I, so my hurts are ridiculously tame and perhaps even easy to handle.

But this is my life. 
This is what is important to me.
My grandfather, who whispered to me once that I was his favorite. A whisper I will never forget.
And my dog, who loved me unconditionally. 

And now I sit here in the dark of my dorm room, my iTunes on shuffle and tears streaming down my face, writing this angsty piece of shit. Gods, shoot me now.


Does it ever really get better? Does it ever stop hurting? Does the space inside where my loved ones used to live ever really get filled up again? 

I hate this. 
This stupid sadness that makes ever song feel like a requiem for the dead, that causes tears to course down my face at the most insignificant mentions.
The stupid fact that it's been nearly two years since his death and burial and I still miss him fiercely. 

Well, that's all for now.
Expect more in the near future.

I almost wish I had never seen my dog die. 

Every night when I try to fall asleep, I see her die. The scene plays over and over in my head, every single detail replayed in perfect color. 

I was situated in the very corner of the room, my back pressed against the juncture of two sponge-painted walls, colored salmon and cream over white. My mother was next to me and my brother was sitting on the chair in front of me. Minnie was in between us, standing around, wondering why the hell we were still in Exam Room 1 after three interminable hours. Minutes before the doctor came in, she fixed me with a beautiful puppy-dog stare. Even though her brown eyes were clouded with cataracts, I saw the meaning behind them. 
It was love. Pure, unadulterated love. Devotion, loyalty, acceptance, blind trust. 
She trusted me, and here I was, waiting with her for death. 

The doorknob jiggled and turned. In walked Dr. Whit with an electric shaver and a syringe filled with pink liquid.

He spoke, but his words were not important. Words of reassurance, of comfort...words with no meaning, as far as we were concerned. Maybe he knew that, maybe he didn't. But he spoke anyways. His voice was gentle and kind, but I didn't hear what he said. As if on ceremony, we all knelt beside her. 

She sat down, as if sensing something important was about to happen. We had on hands on her, petting her, giving her the tiniest bit of love and support that we could as she faced the death she did not know was coming. He took her right front paw in his hands. The shaver buzzed angrily in his hands, a black demon with metal teeth, designed to cut but not to kill. A three inch patch of short golden-brown hair fell to the floor within a few strokes.

I could not watch him insert the needle, but neither did I have to. The effect it had was almost instantaneous. Her eyelids, perpetually outlined in perfect black, started to droop. I don't know if she laid down of her own accord, or if her muscles could no longer fight gravity, but her body became limp in our hands. Slowly, we guided her to the floor. My mom cradled her head gently and I dug my hands into her fur.

It was finished.

Needless to say, each of us was sobbing. 

Nonsensically, my mom asked, "Can she hear us?"

I can imagine Dr. Whit's thoughts. But instead of asking my mom if she was joking, he smiled sadly and shook his head. Through the whole ordeal, he did not utter a single cliche, for which I was grateful. 

For ten minutes, we stayed with her, crying over her corpse, petting her still-warm and soft fur. I don't remember my movements, only that I somehow managed to stand and walk to the other side of the room. My mother took off her collar, the only collar she ever wore, and joined me. Soon, my brother did the same and the decision to leave was unanimous. My brother left first, followed by my mom. I was the last out of the room, the one responsible for closing the door. 

I looked backed. 
God damn it, I looked back. I saw her lying there on the cold, white linoleum, entirely alone. Her body was half-hidden by a chair, but I could see her face. Her brown eyes were open and her ears were pricked up. Despite the fact that no life remained, she looked happy and peaceful. She looked young again, like she was meant to look. She looked beautiful, and it broke my heart to leave her. I wanted to go back and be with her. I didn't want to leave her alone.

And who even knows what was done with her after that? How was she removed from Exam Room 1? With care? With dignity? With the same amount of respect and love she was used to? Where was she put? In a bag? On a shelf? In a refrigerator? When was she taken to the crematorium? What other beloved pets was she thrown in with? Was she placed, or tossed unceremoniously like a used rag into a sink?

Was she shown the respect she deserved?



Maybe that will bring me some closure...? 
Or maybe I just rehashed painful memories that I will now spend the entire night reliving again.

So that's it.

Minnie is dead. 

There was a tumor coming off of her spleen about the diameter of a grapefruit and five inches long. It compressed all of her organs up under her ribcage. Surgery was an option, but not a realistic one. There was no time. We made the decision, the doctor gave her the injection, and I watched her die.

It almost makes me wonder if it was worth it. Were the 14 years of bliss she gave us worth the pain I feel now? My head aches, my eyes burn, and someone is sitting on my chest. My heart still beats, but with each one it hurts more. 
Grief is not just an emotional ache, it's a physical one. 

She's not in pain anymore.

She's not anything anymore. Just a dead dog lying on a cold, white linoleum floor, brown eyes open, big ears still pricked up.
She's just a shell now. 

It's over.

At the beginning, I suppose, would be an adequate place. 

So, I had three finals: English/writing, chemistry, and calculus. The English/writing one was a breeze, as expected. I had a minor meltdown on Sunday about finals in general and was sure I would fail chem and calc. But, when I actually sat to take the exam, I found that I somehow knew the majority of the material. And anything else I didn't know, I could guess (thus earning me partial credit). Overall, exams (for me) were suspiciously easy. I guess I'll see how they really went when grades get in. Cross your fingers for me. 

When I got home, I found out that it was a very real possibility that my dog might die over break. She took a bad fall last Saturday and has been wobbly ever since. And she's not eating well (if at all) and her liquid intake is incredibly low. I think we're taking her to the vet tomorrow to get her checked out, but I can imagine the prognosis.
Euthanasia.
That's what they'll suggest. And you know what?
We'll take it. 
It's not fair to make her live like this. She may be happy, or at least pretend to be, but she's now confined to one room. She's not allowed to go upstairs (not like she could anyways) and she's even reluctant to go outside. Therefore, she goes inside, leaving terrible messes for us to clean up. 
But she's an old lady (about 13 or 14), so this kind of deterioration is to be totally expected. It's just a matter of when she's going to deteriorate to the point of dying. All that matters now is for how long she'll stay alive. 
My guess, once I go back for second semester, my dog will be dead.

If she doesn't die of natural causes, we're having the euthanasia guy (we'll call him the Death Dealer) over to the house. My mom asked me if I'd like to be there when it's done. I said yes. 
My father said no, as did my brother and sisters. 
Seeing my pet die will not make her death any easier on me. It will, instead, solidify her absence. I tend not to believe things unless I can see them (recall numbness at my Grandfather's death and subsequent deluge of tears for the two days of his wake/burial). 
This Christmas, like the majority of holidays for me (interestingly enough), may end up sucking.

In other news, my sister, Julia, got run over by a car yesterday. I'm tempted to concoct this magnificent story of a car chase and mangled limbs and imminent amputation, but the presence of the Black Man looming over my house is doing nothing to assuage my biting fears, and I'm not about to take my chances. 
It happened as they were being picked up from a volleyball game at Groves (a local high school). The man who was driving (one of their friend's fathers) thought everyone was in the car and started to drive forward slowly. What he did not notice was that Julia was most definitely outside of the car and very much in front of the tires. Everything happened quickly for her and she doesn't recall a lot of the details, but after looking at her leg, I came up with a rough sketch of what I think happened: Her leg somehow got twisted as the car was going over her foot. The outside of her left leg was smashed upon the ground, the inside muscle of it was pinned beneath the tire itself. Once the driver realized what was happening, as did the five other girls in the car, he immediately backed up, releasing her foot. The car rolled up to about her knee, then back down the entire thing.

When they all got home, Julia seemed remarkably unfazed. She wasn't crying and wasn't in pain, except for the minor scrapes she received. Hells, she was going up and down the stairs. Obviously nothing was broken, fractured, or even displaced. Nevertheless, due to my mother's paranoia, we spent three hours in Beaumont last night only to have the doctors tell us what we already knew. 
If anything, I was more worried about Angela (Julia's twin, for those who may not know). I guess she saw, actually saw Julia's foot get squished under the wheel. She was shaking and crying and scared out of her mind while Julia, the one who actually got run over, was absolutely calm. 


So yeah, that was my first day home. College is so tame compared to this. 
It was weird when I was in the hospital and realizing that, if the car had run over her leg any other way, she would have shattered bones and the whole ordeal would have been incredibly terrible. But, I'm not going to think about what could have happened, mostly because it didn't and it will do me no good now.
What I will think about, though, is my dog's approaching death and how things tend to die in threes.