My sister, a golden retriever, journeyed to the stars. I spent the last four years of her life with her almost constantly since I worked from home and I tried to care for her the best I could (she had cancer) but now I’m filled with regret, thinking about how I didn’t know if she was hungry, in pain, if she wanted/needed a different kind of food. I’m so angry that I was so useless and helpless in taking care of her, because she couldn’t talk—did she need more carbs? More organ meat? More massages? Was she craving broth and I just didn’t know?
Is there any book for that? And wanting to go back in time to do it all over?
Already read The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, The Book of Pet Love and Loss, Good Grief, My Dog Tulip, Time Shelter.
Caregiving at the end is such a freakin hard thing! In most books eg. Marley and Me, The Art of Racing in The Rain, even The Friend and My Dog Tulip, the dog just dies but there’s no actual prose or story dedicated to that difficulty in caring for a pet who is a different species from you and can’t talk!
by followgoldentail