today charlie grimes died.  he was a 14 year old cocker spaniel and just
about everything was wrong with him.  his body didn't want to fight anymore.
his people said goodbye at home and dropped him at the hospital but didn't
want to stay to witness his death.  they wanted to remember him alive.  i
cannot blame them.

it happens like that every once in a while and when it does, i feel a special
privilege to be the one to put my hands on the body to feel them go.  i think
the doctor realized that today because i was petting charlie's head and looking
into his eyes and she decided to do the injection in a back leg instead of the
front as usual.  she whispered sweet things to him and i confirmed them silently
and he died very easily.  another girl in the office was loudly talking to
a cat, duke, telling him she'd had enough of his whining for the day.  he
had been whining quite a lot.  but this was charlie's time and the doctor knew
this and shut the door so his first moments of eternity could be in silence.

out of a sort of clinical curiosity, the doctor did a necropsy afterwards.  we
had been taking x-rays of his abdomen for the past several months and there was
a foreign body in his stomach that we couldn't identify.  upon his disection,
it was discovered to be a hair brush.  oh charlie, why'd you eat a hair brush?
his owner's silver-blonde hairs were wrapped around the bristles.