Death, What Really is “Death”

Death, death is all around us and today our dog just walked up to death’s front door. Is death a savior or is death a monster? Today we learned that my dog had cancer and it was weird, like time just stood still as we learned of this new information. Now our dog had a chance of dying. I had another dog when I was very young and he died close to when my sister was born so only my brother and parents knew him very well. Now my dog could disappear just as my other dog, Clifford, had. But now my brother was a veterinarian, well he is getting his degree as a veterinarian and he is still in college now. My brother works at a veterinary hospital not too far away and that is where we bring our other animals.

It was a Saturday morning. I woke up and trudged down the stairs and after and hour or two of being awake watching cartoons, my sister came down the stairs. Our dad walked in and was in a drowsy mood and his foot steps were as silent as a cat’s. He somberly told us, “Jessie has cancer,” and he started to cry. It hit us like a truck, it seemed as everyone gasped and it went silent, it was a surprise to us because no other family member we had had cancer. My sister had tears in her eyes , and within a day or two we traveled to the vet. The car ride to the vet was quite, no one said a word, eventually the car slowly drove into the parking lot and it seemed as if the car squealed when we parked. We were at the one where my brother works. As my family and I walked inside and the door squeaked open, we spoke with the doctor. We were solemn and we handed our dog over to our brother and the doctors. We gave our gratitude to them, and my sister started bawling and everyone in the room started looking at her like she was crazy but she didn’t care.  Everyone understood why she was like that, we said take good care of Jessie as we waved good bye.

The day after we dropped Jessie off, we prayed for him and hoped that he would be ok.  This whole thing had been unexpected. Who would have guessed that our dog out of every dog in the world would have cancer? It is so scary and surprising, it just brought tears to our eyes. Me and my sister never thought or actually knew anyone who had cancer so it was a lot to take in. It was as if the whole world was spiraling and the world was out of sight. My whole vision went black as I was distraught and felt as if I was going crazy.

In the days to come we did not know what to expect, or what was going on at the doctors.  We were all dancing on top of the phone just dreading and eagerly waiting for that one call. Eventually the call came in, our dad rushed to the phone, then we all sped away from what we were doing and hurried to the phone. Everyone was quite, “Yes, ohh,” when the phone call ended we all asked, “What did the doctors say?” Our dad said, “Jessie is fine and he got his tooth removed,” and we all released our breath that was stuck in our lungs not wanting to leave.  We were ecstatic that he was ok. The doctor told us what needed to be done and what had occurred when Jessie was in the hospital.  We went to pick up Jessie that very day.  We also made sure he was fine and to take care of him well. We took care of our dog and realized many things that day, such as how dangerous life can be and how at any moment life could take a bad turn and that death could rob us from our lives at anytime. This event also showed us how life is always changing and challenging and moments like these can be hard. We learned how we have to rebuild and keep going on to live another day. One famous quote, by Albert Einstein, which we should truly should live by is “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving.”