Babe,
People can be so incredibly ignorant. But I don’t have to tell you that, do I? When I think about the weeks leading up to your death, and the cases at work that stayed with you, the abuse from clients that stayed with you, the preventable illnesses that killed some of your patients- the full impact of which I only learned about after they had gotten the better of you.
This is nothing new. None of it is surprising. Which doesn’t make it easier to see or hear. What does make it easier, however, is knowing to my core that nothing anyone says will convince me that barriers are not important. That your life and the lives of others struggling are not important enough to add to a bridge.
A historic bridge… Let’s make history by saving lives on a bridge that so clearly was not constructed with safety in mind. I think about why that might be…is it because suicide was so taboo, back then? That it was considered shameful and something to hide? That you couldn’t celebrate the life of a loved one if suicide was what killed them? You may have killed yourself, but you didn’t do it on your own. You had help from people that would stand here today and tell me you weren’t worth saving. You had help from people who could not take responsibility for their own pet’s suffering. But you didn’t ask for their help. You never asked anyone for help, even the help you needed.
I have never felt this way before, so unaffected by negative words and views. Finding it so incredibly easy to stay focused on what’s important, unphased by what others’ say. I feel untouchable. You have given me an armor that I will wear for the rest of my life. There is no better justification and argument to me than you, and the future lives that will be saved because of you.
I want to call Be The Match and ask them why oh why they didn’t put you under anesthesia for your donation? I want to tell them that even though it didn’t hurt, the feeling stayed with you. I have a sneaking suspicion you may have told them they could just do the local, though, which they do, sometimes. I can’t help but think your experience wouldn’t have been so traumatizing if you had be anesthetized.
I feel so numb, after this week. It’s actually been kind of nice, to have a bit of a break from the hole in my heart. I can see why so many people want to live here, in this feeling. I can’t do that, though. It’s unfair to you. It’s unfair to how much you meant to me, how much I loved you, how much we all loved you. It is because of that love that this hurts so much.
Tania asked me what I would be doing for Thanksgiving, yesterday. I honestly don’t feel like celebrating anything, this year. I just can’t imagine celebrating anything that you are no longer a part of, when 5 months ago, you would have been celebrating with me and the rest of your family.
One of my saddest thoughts is when I think of our little family- the buns, Annie, you, and me. Where one-by-one, we had to say goodbye. And Shucks the last of the pets we started with, only two weeks before I had to say goodbye to you. I am the last one left of our little family. You are all dead, now. Hugo, our son, our problem child- he is the last of what you and I shared, together. I told him he must live forever.
You deserved so much more, babe.
I love you, I miss you.