Ruby Tuesday

"Can I come too, Mommy?"  Ruby Radunski, 1998 - 2010

So really work should have begun hours ago but I am considering something else. Death.

Is there a more uncomfortable contemplation for an ordinary person than the end of the miracle of being alive?

This is not just a morbid moment in the 3 a.m. void. I am attending the final illness of my favourite dog, Ruby.

She's lying in the bedroom, dozing on her blue blanket, from time to time sipping her water, greeting me with a wag of her stumpy tail, gazing at me with glazed but still enquiring eyes.

I've made sure she's not in pain. I've made sure she doesn't panic about shortness of breath. I've made sure that rampant infection cannot invade her.

But she certainly can't do the things that are her pleasures, so how can I say she has 'quality of life'?

So this phase of her dying is about weaning myself of her beloved presence.

That's all.