The vet sat at the table, folded his hands, and thought. I was sitting on a bench; my mom had called me, her brow furrowed slightly, her eyes searching for nothing, wanting to avoid the world around her. My mouth was dry; I'd been ignoring reality for quite some time, long enough to never realize anything, both by choice and because of that little silly game of hide-and-seek my parents had set up around me: my dog had cancer.
I heard the vet say a lot of things, how one thing damaged another, forming a decaying row, like dominoes falling. How one failing organ damaged the next, and the next, and the next. And finally...
"The only reason he's still alive is because he wants to live," he says, looking at my dog, who was with me, by my side, for half of my childhood and all of my adolescence.
And I looked at the sky, strangely clear, cloudless, on the other side of the window. There were no sounds of cars, no planes, nothing. The world had suddenly fallen silent.
Another week of suffering.
I truly believe that this pain returns from time to time to remind me how short life really is. We all die, eventually. We all leave.
That year, before turning 18, I said goodbye to everything that had meant to my childhood, my adolescence, and my eternal youth, and that, much to my regret, included you. I would have given anything to have you a little longer, but prolonging your suffering would have been so selfish it wouldn't have been considered love.
My love for you is more eternal than any life will ever be. I love you, Slash.
I love you with all my heart.