She was wrapped up in a pink towel when they brought her back in. Laying almost motionless, she stared blankly forward. Only the slow, pained motion of her chest as she breathed gave any indication that she was still alive.

I touched her paw, the right forepaw, the one with the needle sticking out of it. She didn’t flinch one bit; she just continued to stare blankly. Somehow, I thnk she knew what was coming next.

The doctor grabbed a hold of the syringe. Nadia clasped her head in both hands, shielding her expressionless eyes. We watched the life drain from her body as the doctor pushed the plunger deeper into the tube. In a matter of moments, her breathing stopped, her pain subsided, and she ceased to be.

The above is what I wrote into my little notebook about what happened this morning. We put Harmoni down, as her kidney failure continued to worsen. She would barely move, she would barely eat, and she stopped cleaning up after herself the few times she would decide to eat. She wouldn’t groom herself, nor did she sharpen her claws. She seemed like she just gave up. We were constantly changing the type of food that we fed to her in hopes that we would find something that she would like eat. At the end, we were giving her chicken broth and baby food, at the suggestion of a local vet. Those barely worked.

I call this a little tragedy because comedian George Carlin once said (I’m paraphrasing) that getting a pet is like getting a little tragedy that is waiting to happen. Harmoni was the third of such tragedies that Nad and I have endured. I just hope that Harmoni enjoyed the year that she spent with us.

The vet at the emergency clinic told us that there was nothing we could do to save her. Her kidney had deteriorated to the point that only constant 24-hour care would keep her alive, and there was no telling how long that would keep her going. He felt that putting her to sleep was the best option for her.

I believe that many pet owners would agree that we made the right decision. Even the doctor thought so. However, I can’t shake the feeling that we put a dollar value on her life, and determined that the cost of that 24-hour care was greater than that price, so we had her killed instead. That’s probably a harsh way to think of it, but that thought is making me feel about *that* small right now.