Goodbye, Aberfan.

We lost a member of our family last week.

Our dog, Xeena, was sick - the vet didn't know with what. She had been relatively healthy over the summer, when she weighed 30 pounds, although a routine checkup indicated the beginnings of congestive heart failure. In October, she had a seizure while she was at the kennel one weekend. After that, she began favoring her back left leg. By mid-October, she was down to 25 pounds; we thought she had a UTI, but after 2 rounds of antibiotics, nothing helped. Then I noticed during the last weekend, she hadn't eaten. I took her to the vet for another exam the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and she was down to 22 pounds.

Xeena in 2004. Happier times.

It may have been a neurological condition, or kidney failure, or cancer; it was probably cancer. We could have run a whole bunch of expensive tests to determine exactly what it was, but in the end, considering the likely diagnosis, and the fact that she was 14 years old, even after running the tests there probably wasn't a whole lot we could have done for her.

She was supposed to go to the kennel for the holiday weekend; she just wasn't strong enough. We were afraid she would have another seizure, or worse, that she would die alone, surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar place.

And so it was time.

The day before Thanksgiving, we had her euthanized at the vets. She died in relative comfort, surrounded by her family.

It was the hardest decision I've ever made. My heart is still furious with my head over it, even though I know it was the right thing to do. If she wasn't suffering last Wednesday, she was going to be soon.

After some time had passed this weekend, I was able to reflect on the whole thing. It turns out I was more attached to her than I ever realized.

It put me in a mind to read a short story I had read a couple years ago, "The Last of the Winnebagos" by Connie Willis. It is a story that takes place in the near-future; a future a lot like ours, except that a virulent disease has wiped out all the dogs on earth.

It is kind of like that subgenre of sci fi termed "post-apocalyptic" except that so many post-apocalyptic stories are stories of survival; this one is more about how people react when they are faced with loss. And that was exactly the kind of story I needed over the weekend.

The story is about a photojournalist who never got a picture of his own dog, Aberfan, before he died. Most dogs died of the disease, but Aberfan died after getting hit by a car. Years later, he sees a jackal by the side of the road - hit by someone on the highway - and it triggers some pretty harsh memories and sets into motion his own journey of self-discovery. He sets out to talk to the girl who hit Aberfan with her Jeep, to see if he can find Aberfan in the look on her face when he finally reconnects, and confronts her about it.

Instead, he finds out something about himself. He accidentally gets a picture of himself, and finds the truth of his emotions in an unguarded moment: "And it was all there, Misha and Taco and Perdita and the look he gave me on the way to the vet's while I stroked his poor head and told him it would be all right, that look of love and pity I had been trying to capture all these years. The picture of Aberfan."

The same look of heartbreak I saw as Xeena rode on my lap to the vet, for the last time.

So goodbye, Aberfan.

And goodbye, Xeena. You were a good dog. We love you, and we will miss you.

Now if you will excuse me, I think I have something in my eye.