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I hope you know we did our best to take good care of you. We wish we did better with your teeth and your diet. Maybe if we did, you would have lived much longer (and had more teeth). I know you were about to turn 12 in July and that you were reaching the “life expectancy” age range. But I thought we would have much more time, hoped for many more years with you. But I just wasn’t expecting this, now of all times.
Maybe something in my heart knew, or had an inkling but refused to acknowledge it. About 18 months ago when I heard about this trip, I was excited to go; Australia had always been my dream vacation. We felt it would be easy to find a person to take care of you for 2 weeks. Family and friends loved you and would be willing to be your temporary caretakers. But when Kira joined us, we knew it would be too much to ask for them. Boarding you both was our only option, though we never wanted to do it. Leaving you with strangers who didn’t know you and your quirks didn’t appeal to me.
Right before Christmas last year, I started to prep the two of you that we’d be gone for a while. During cuddle times, I would take your head and smooth your entire face – eyes and velvety ears, too – with my thumb. Then I’d look into your eyes to say, “I am always in your heart, just like you are always in mine.” Which I eventually was shortened down to:
“𝑰 𝒂𝒎 𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆”
That was my mantra to both of you. Or for me. Or whatever. It just helped calm me down.
In reality, it was about a year before the trip that I started to have doubts. That was when you started to get sick. We had just learned that your kidney blood levels were elevated, and we had to start you on a special diet. You ate kibble until you lost your appetite, then we switched to canned food. During this time, your kidneys never improved. After a while, you had no interest in the wet food either, so we added steamed vegetables, which seemed to improve your appetite.