[FONT=Arial][SIZE=7][COLOR=blue]The pain is too great, I feel as if I just can't go on. My little buddy Sparky was my shadow for 12 years and now when I turn around to say"watch out Spark, I don't want to step on you" he is not there. I didn't even know he was ill until 2 weeks before he left me. We were moving back to a house with a yard for him to run and play (after having to live in an apartment for 3 years after losing the house I was renting), oh how he loved to run and play in the yard. I was giving him back his yard and my poor baby never even got to step one paw in the new grass. I thought he was a bit home sick after we moved and then he grew gravely ill. I took him to the vet only to find that he was in kidney failure. How could this happen so fast? I didn't even have time to let it sink in that I was going to lose him. His last 2 weeks were spent in the hospital on IV's and other meds to control symptoms as they came (siezures,vomiting,nausea). From the time I found out how ill he was he only spent 2 days at home and those 2 days were spent watching him grow sicker and lifeless. I just layed and cuddled with him the whole time. I didn't want to let him go. Monday morning I knew he had to go back, he needed the supportive care I couldn't give him. For 6 days he seemed to be getting better, his numbers were coming back down and he actually ate!!!!!!!!!! Then I got the call. "it doesn't look like he will make it through the night, and I know how you said that you didn't want him to die alone". I couldn't get there in the time they needed me to be so I had to make up my mind to let the vet tech hold him and tell him my message of love in his ear while he left this world, or to attempt to make him suffer through the night to wait for me to get there in the morning or suffer alone and die alone through the night. With an extremely heavy heart I told her to give him a message for me while she held him when he took his last breath. I gave her all the names to say to him , his family, the people who loved him and he loved back 10 fold. I hung up the phone, dropped to my knees and kept praying, for 2 hours I prayed asking God to forgive me and to take him into his arms and keep him safe and warm. I cried all that night and al the next day. I prayed to God to let him give me a sign that he was ok and here with me, I still have no sign, I wait patiently everyday to get that sign. He left us to go to the Rainbow Bridge on August 31,2004. My heart is still broken in pieces, my oldest son is still a mess, following me everywhere. he still doens't have the strength to go to school, he cries all the time and just stares out into space. I don't know how to help him when I myself can't cope with this lose. Please God, help us. My 2 other kids girl 12 who grew up with Sparky and a boy 16 have gone on with their lives, how I will never know. I know different people deal with things in a different way, but how can they just go on???? Sparky was not only a dog, he was and always will be a member of our family. My ex husband got him for me a couple weeks after I had a miscarriage at 8 months and lost my daughter. I don't know if this is why I just can't get past this, maybe I somehow feel that losing Sparky is not only losing him but also losing my daughter all over again. I am on a sleeping pill prescribed by my doctor and an antidepressant. I am a total mess. I just don't know what to do anymore.

Sparky is a beautiful Sheltie! I am so sorry for your loss of him and I am so sorry that you couldn't be there for his final hours and minutes. You will get through this and it is a long hard road. I thought I would never get through it but I am slowly and it's getting easier day by day. I have started remembering happy memories of my beloved 17-yr old furkitty and it helps tremendously. The pain is terrible! All of us here have been and still are grieving for our beloved pets that we have lost. My heart goes out to those that have had to make the difficult decision of putting their beloved pet to sleep and I cry with you. Sparky is at Rainbow Bridge healthy, happy, running, and playing with all his new friends. He misses and loves you and the family. He'll be waiting for you for however long it takes.

Please except my condolences in the loss of Sparky.


Love
Wanda

Sparky is so beautiful!

You help your son by crying with him.

You get over this by staying up all night every night just crying and breaking
your heart.
Your eyes become so sore you cant wipe away the tears anymore.
You look in the mirror and wonder if your face is still there under all that puffiness.
Your throat hurts so much you wonder if your going to be able to take another breath.
Some people take antidepressants, but you must and i mean must work through this grief the old fashioned way with tears, screams, resentment, guilt and anger.
oh and dont forget that old friend time.
Work through this a minute at a time, then when your able an hour till eventually a day at a time.

Love to you all
Sue

Sue,
Thank you for the note. I can't believe that you have desribed how I feel, look, hurt, talk and act right now to a T. I can only chaulk it up to you knowing exactly how I am feeling. I am still hurting so bad, here it is almost 10 days and I still can't stop crying. Thank you for your kind words.
Luv, Trish

When your grief is only 10 days old the death of your beautiful Sparky may just as well have only happened a minute ago.
Being patient with yourself and allowing the grief to work at its own pace is much more important than worrying about what other people say you should be feeling/doing.

My husband wouldn’t let me talk about the dogs for months because we just kept crying, I had to respect his wishes even though to be able to deal with my grief I needed to talk about them.

Even on this site, we all take a different amount of time – not to heal but to be able to live with the loss.

Think about what do you really think happens to us after death, do you really think this is all there is and if not then surely our reward for having lived down here must be to go home to a truly beautiful place where love and laughter is the norm instead of tears and hate.

We all work through this differently and 10 days is very very early on in the grief process, but maybe you still haven’t dealt with other grief’s, therefore maybe you really should be thinking of some sort of counselling other than the counselling we give each other here.

Love Sue