Birthdays

I am enjoying my last day of being 22 today.  What will 23 bring?

Lots of love and happiness I hope!

DiXiE

Dixie Beethoven Kernel

May 1994 - Feb 12, 2009

We had her put down.  It was her time, the poor thing had a tumor the size of a basketball on her leg, could barely get off the ground because her legs weren't strong enough, began pooping inside the house, and was in the beginning stages of going blind.  She also had a terrible stench to her.

At first I was relieved to hear that my grandma had finally made the decision to take her in.  It made me so sad to go home and see the dog from my childhood in such bad condition.  I received a text message from my grandma Monday morning that said "Dixie d-day, Thursday" and my first instinct was to say "FINALLY!"  When the day came, it began to sink in.

I was laying in a tanning bed around 1:30pm, realizing that these were the last moments of Dixie's life.  Deep breath, I know it'll be ok.

I filled the rest of my day is various activities, geared at getting my mind off of it.  5:00pm, my grandma calls while I'm driving home.  She sounds normal, telling me about a purse she bought when she went shopping earlier and now she's going to Autozone with my grandpa to get some car parts.  I think she could tell by my quietness that something else was on my mind.  

"It's been a hard day," she said.  Tears well up.  "Yeah" I replied.  She took a deep breath, and before anything else could come out of her mouth, the tears gushed out of my eyes.  "Even Justin (my brother) cried." There, finally, it hit me.

I cried the rest of the way home.

I can't believe she's gone.  The dog that I've spent 3/4 of my life with is gone, vanished from this earth.  I will never see her again.

I can't shake this feeling of guilt.  I'm not sure for what, there wasn't anything any of us could do.  I had a dream about Dixie the other night and I told my grandma about it.  She said "I've been thinking about Dixie a lot lately."  She told me how excited she was to finally get to go somewhere when they (my grandma and Justin) put her in the car to go to the vet.  She hadn't been somewhere in so long because of her inability to get in the car.  I can't imagine how miserable the last year of her life was, sitting cooped up in the house all the time.  I wish I could've done more to brighten her life.

One way of looking at it is that the last memories of her life were happy ones.  

I'm not sure why I decided to make my first post such a sad one.  I guess I just want someone else to know how I feel, even if it's a stranger.