Henry left us in May 2023. I wrote this in June that year. It’s taken me three years to be able to publish it. I’m sure you’ll understand why.
26.06.23
Dear Henry,
It’s more than six weeks since you left us.
You no longer sit at my shoulder when I do my morning exercises, you don’t lie by my desk when I’m working and you’re no longer in the kitchen when I cook; but I still look for you and wait for you to stand and look at the spot where you know the parmesan will fall.
I still think you’re going to be waiting behind the door when I come back from the shops.
We knew you were getting old but we thought we would be able to keep you forever, even on the days when you didn’t seem to know where you were or why you were standing on the forest track, we never dreamed there would be a time without you.
We were sure we could manage the problem with your water works, even if it meant changing your Pampers several times a day.
And then, as in real life, something came, completely unexpected.
It was a Saturday evening. We sat with you in the cold, sterile atmosphere of an A&E unit. The vet managed to stop the nosebleed but the discussion about the possible causes stirred a sense of misgiving which we didn’t want to accept. We hung on to the belief that when your blood pressure was reduced the nose-bleeds would stop and supressed the fear that there was a very bad storm brewing.
But they didn’t stop. There were light leaks which you licked away but we could see that they were troubling you.
On that fateful day, at four thirty in the morning, we could hear you were having trouble breathing. And then the dam broke and we knew we had a terrible decision to make. We could have kept you with us for a few days or even a couple of weeks but the price for you would have been very high. It may also have meant that we would have had to take you one last time to the emergency clinic where in the cold atmosphere, on a metal examination table with strangers around you we would have had to let you go.
I wasn’t born to be God and I never imagined I would have to decide whether a beautiful little Border terrier should live or die.
But we arranged for the vet to come to us the next day.
We gave you your thyroid tablets, took you out for your morning walk. You sniffed every bush, peed where the others had peed before you. We watched as you scoffed your breakfast.
We even played ball and I chased you round the coffee table to try and steal it from you.
Given your age and your condition it was a good day for you. I didn’t get the impression that you had given up or were so tired of life that you would have wanted it to end.
It was Saturday May 13th. You were fourteen years ten months and two days old.
A most fitting eulogy is a quote from one of Mama’s favourite films ‘Out of Africa’ where Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) stands at the grave of Denys Finch-Hatton (Robert Redford).
‘Now take back the soul of Denys George Finch-Hatton whom you have shared with us. He brought us joy. We loved him well. He was not ours. He was not mine.’
— Out of Africa
Rest in peace, little man.