I’ve never had to do this before. I’m going to kill my dog tomorrow. I have an appointment. The time is set. I’ve have nothing to do now but wait. You’re not supposed to choose when someone’s life is going to end. It isn’t a question of morality, but a natural balance of things. I feel sorrow. I feel guilt. I have had dogs before and had experienced loss with them, but not like this. This is new for me. When I was a kid we had a dog that died in his sleep. I was around 15 or 16 years old when it happened and I remember feeling sad. But, the truth of the matter was I wasn’t really that said. My family had adopted this dog as an adult dog, but the dog never really bonded to anyone other than my mother. Of course I took the dog on walks, fed it, and gave it water when it needed it, but he was never really my dog. The loss that I felt was much diluted. A few years later my Grandpa passed away. That day had been coming for a long time and we all knew it was imminent. Every time I visited him he had less and less of an idea of who I was or where he was. My grandpa had been through skin and prostate cancer all with little more than a murmur through the family. It wasn’t the type of thing that my family talked about. It just was what it was. It wasn’t like my grandpa could have said anything about it to me either; English was a second language to him. Given that small detail, it was difficult to have much of a relationship with him. I only saw my grandparents a few times a year on holidays and I didn’t grow up with them in my life as a small child—so my Grandpa was almost a stranger to me. When he died, I was sad, but not in the way somebody who’s experiencing loss should feel. So today I’m thinking of a Remy. I’m thinking of the day that I met Remy, the day he chose Ashleigh, and the day my life changed. He’s been such a good boy. We adopted him, from a boxer rescue foundation. He came from a family who loved him but moved out of the area and couldn’t take him. Remy isn’t your average boxer, by most standards he’s kind of small. The day that we met him, we met many other beautiful boxers, but Remy was different. The way he clung to Ashleigh that first day, we knew he needed to come home with us. And as I dwell on that thought, I take it back. He didn't need to come home with us, we needed him. He has brought so much joy to us that it is hard to see him lying there asleep, knowing that tomorrow will be the last day I will ever see him. My heart is broken. Fuck cancer. I should know better. I know the chances of a boxer getting cancer are like 100 out of 100, and the life expectancy is about seven or eight. Now that Remy just turned nine, this was exactly the type of thing I should have been expecting—and honestly I was. In the last few weeks, he's been wasting away. What was once a very muscular, agile, and athletic dog was now in the twilight of his life. His face is now almost completely gray; his body misshaped by the cancer. The thick muscles that used to cover his chest and legs have withered away, revealing a frail frame of bones underneath. I’ve been expecting to wake up in the morning or come home from work at night to find that he had passed in his sleep. But this wouldn’t be that simple. I had to be responsible. I had to weigh the cost of him going through blood transfusions, x-rays, surgery, chemotherapy, and who knows what else for a few more months with him alive. What a fucked up and cruel thing to have to decide. Can I spend $10,000 to selfishly keep him clinging to life? Can Ashleigh and I afford that kind of expense? What kind of a shitty life would that be for him over those short few months? Ashleigh and I spend long hours away from the house at work and would worry nonstop that he was in pain or discomfort. The vet is saying that we have some choices, but they don’t feel much like choices. It feels like someone is saying, “I’m going to kick you in the balls as hard as I can. So, how would you like me to do it?” Thankfully the animal hospital staff was gracious and kind and all the things I needed them to be. They all kept apologizing and telling me how sweet he was and asking if they could do anything. They couldn’t make the “decision” for me. They couldn’t cure him and make him whole again. But they were right, he is a sweet boy. I just fed him what will most likely be his last dinner, and still he comes over to thank me by wiping the crumbs from his jowls on my leg. I love him so much. I wish it was all a bad dream. I wish that I could wake up from this nightmare. I know all too well this is no dream. Tomorrow, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, a vet will come to the house and put Remy to sleep. I’ve arranged to have him cremated and for his remains to be sent back home to us. I want him here with Ashleigh and I because we will miss his face. We will miss the way he never really looks you in the eye. We will miss the way his breath was always so terrible. We will miss the way he seemed to smile when he was really happy. We will miss his whimpering when he wanted to chase something he saw outside. We will miss everything that makes him special, and nothing will ever replace that.