"Thank you for your existence, Simon"

After a lot of tears with Danielle, and two or three tears at the vet, I said goodbye to the world's best boy a couple hours ago.

The title is what I pre-planned as my last words for him--well, for me, since the procedure had finished several minutes prior. I don't remember what my last words to conscious Simon were... which just made me heave a bit. And I forgot to bring his rainbow blanket and stuffed log, which just made me sniffle.

Maybe I told him I loved him and that he's a good boy? Perhaps an admonishment/apology when I had to move him to ensure he was fully atop the pillow and pee pad. Whatever it was, I think I was silent once the doctor started. I just petted him with my right hand, knuckling near the entrance of his ear while scratching behind the base of that same ear, rubbing his closed eye with my thumb, the way he liked. I hope it helped. I hope he was merely uncomfortable and not scared.

I pushed for this. Ultimately, Danielle acceded because right after I made my case to her, the doctor called to tell me his condition was worsening and unlikely to improve. But before that I was tearfully arguing for this exact conclusion, because when all was said and done we had an outside chance of gaining 12 months, but more likely gaining a few sad days. In between those outcomes was a lot more bad than good.

That was really hard. We both spent a lot of tears there.

And she's not here. We wished so much she were. Part of why we wanted to treat him was to make that a possibility. But she's at least 24 hours away, with maximum effort. He had me, which was far better than nothing, but it was a cruelty for he and Danielle not to have had each other. I aver it was also the least-bad option. I hope future-me agrees.

Today I plan to be alone, but I have the good fortune of having friends to call upon if needed.

I loved him so fucking much. I'm glad I did. Thank you for your existence, Simon.

(Photo taken 9/15/2013, when he was roughly 4. This has been my desktop background for a long time, but finding the file made me suddenly sob. And laugh. Yay, grief.)