Madman's Mutterings

To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to…
-Hamlet

Max is sleeping. No more.

He gasped his final breath and laid his head in my lap and went off to dream in those happy hills full of rabbits where I cannot follow him. All his age and pain drained away, he will forever be the dog of his youth.

Once, when I gave him a new squeaky toy, he tossed it high across the room and then pounced on it. When his teeth bit into it, it squawked pitifully and Max froze. He opened his mouth very gently and put the toy on the ground. Then he looked at me with eyes full of regret and fear, as if to say, “I didn’t mean to hurt him, Dad.”

That was my dog. My best friend.

There were offers from all sides to be with me today as I did what needed to be done. People who are my friends, who didn’t want me to be alone, who told me it would be harder than I thought. They were all appreciated. But it had always been just the two of us. When the friends left, on solitary holidays, past the lovers and soulmates lost, it was always just us two. A boy and his dog. It seemed only fitting we end it the same way.

I rescued Max from the pound, just a few days shy of being destroyed. He was just a puppy then, a scant six months old. Some people will say that I saved him. In truth, it was the other way around.