My eyes burned. That’s all I could think about. The dull storm thundering behind my eyes, I could barely see. It was like I lost all of my senses. After a couple blinks, the room came back into focus. My family was huddled around the living room, our dog spread out on a blanket on the floor, too weak to keep his head raised.

* * *

Wednesday, when I got home from school, Scooter, the family dog, didn’t greet me at the door. I slowly trudged over to him. I could tell that he wanted to see me, he was wagging his tail. If his tail was wagging, he was okay, right? My parents had decided to take him to the vet that night. Anxiety had welcomed itself in. It was like the room shifted. My mind was racing for hours. We knew that he was getting old, and taking him to the vet would just make it that much more real. 

* * *

I was making dinner when they got home. My mom shuffled into the house, tears welled up in her eyes. I turned away from her quickly. I knew. I didn’t want to hear it yet, I didn’t want it to be real. I was delaying the inevitable. Finally, I mustered up the courage to say something, “What’s wrong?” My back was toward my parents. I couldn’t look at them.

“We have to put him down.”

Those words seeped their way into my brain, and flooded it. The vet told us that Scooter had a massive tumor on his spleen, which was pushing against his stomach and lungs. It could burst at any moment.

Scooter was the type of dog that everyone was immediately drawn to. Anytime someone would come in the house, they knew Scooter was waiting there for them with a welcoming gift, (usually one of my sister’s babydolls). It was just an unspoken decision that people had to come visit Scooter on his last day, and he needed to feel the love and impact he made on others. We had decided that Friday was the day. We could spend Thursday with him, and family could come and say their goodbyes.

My Nana was the first to get there, she is one of Scooter’s favorite people on this planet. I was laying on the floor next to Scooter, preparing for a fresh set of tears to surface. “I bawled all the way here,” Nana said into my dad’s shoulder, “I thought I would be okay when I came in,” she was already crying. Scooter was trying to sleep, and breathe, when my Nana came over to see him. As soon as she got near him, the noise of his hacking consumed the room. He was so excited, but too weak to show it. 

After about an hour of watching him slowly get weaker and weaker, we, as a family, made the decision to take him to the vet that day. His lungs were full of fluid, and he probably wouldn’t have made it through the night. 

It was my turn to say goodbye. I laid on the floor next to him and pet his ears and his icicles of paws. I leaned in real close and whispered so only he could hear, “I love you buddy, sleep good for me, okay?”, and kissed the “lucky spot” on his head.