Mitzi died this morning. She looked so worn out this morning, not eating, not wanting to walk very far. So I took her to the vet’s and she died with me stroking her and telling her I loved her. It hurts of course because there was no way to know for sure it was what Mitzi wanted, but I felt at peace that, as much as I could know, it was indeed what Mitzi wanted. She was tired and in discomfort. I will miss her so very much.
December in South Africa 1977, Part One I had never understood candlelight in quite this way before. Oh there had been candles on the table Christmases past back home in Canada. For atmosphere, for festivity. While the electric crystal chandelier above cast the “real” light on a table laden with turkey, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce.… But this, this was different. Here in the corrugated iron shack that my friends had referred to as “the cottage”—not any cottage that I had ever seen in my growing up in Quebec—with no other light either inside the cottage nor outside in the black night of the Transkei, I understood how candlelight could draw a world down into the narrowness of those around the light, as if nothing else in the world existed. I looked at the six faces around the table, illuminated in the candlelight, my own pulsing with sunburn. "Oh you’ll be grand," they’d told me down at the beach that day. "We’ll tell you when to get out of the sun." And toni...
So sorry.
ReplyDeleteThey know when it's time. And having you there and stroking her and assuring her of love I'm sure helped her passing be more gentle.
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