It might be the old, faithful friend. They have managed to keep ticking over without too much drama until now, but their health is fading fast and you aren’t quite ready to let go yet.

Perhaps it’s your future star, stricken with an injury of such a serious nature that it demands their life be cut too short, without delay.

Or maybe it is a horse who should be coming into their prime, but who has had a problem you couldn’t quite put your finger on at first. Only in the past weeks, months, maybe even years, you’ve noticed a series of other small problems. They might seem insignificant, maybe even totally unrelated. Yet you can’t shake this nagging feeling that despite the reassurances of your vets, chiros, farriers, therapists…that perhaps you aren’t totally mad. Perhaps you aren’t jumping to conclusions. Perhaps you should trust your intuition and believe the sum of all those tiny observations, all the insidious changes. After all, you are more in tune with your four-legged love than any other, right?

Maybe you have a diagnosis. Maybe it is a significant problem, but maybe they just need a change of lifestyle, a different job. Maybe they’ve been managing while you’ve kept them wrapped up in cotton wool.

 

Until now. It could be the most ridiculous of injuries. A tiny strain, a little slip the wrong way. Something that ordinarily, would heal easily and have them back in action after a brief convalescence.

Only this time, that tiniest, most insignificant accident, has changed everything. You see the signs, you ask the questions – in your heart, you already know. You don’t want to believe it, but your intuition is there, in the back of your mind. You already know. And it haunts you.

 

But yet again, they’ve reassured you – you’re just jumping to conclusions. We have the diagnosis. They’ll be fine when they recover from this little hiccup.

And they do. The little, insignificant injury heals, and seems like just that. A hiccup. A bump in the road.

 

But those other red flags that had you starting to fear the worst don’t go away. You do all the right things. You ask the questions. You follow the instructions. You try to make them more comfortable, you try to build them back up again. Your friend willingly cooperates, but something is not right.

It’s different this time. This time, the harder you try to put them back together, the faster they start to fall apart at the seams as you watch helplessly, unable to change the course that is leading you down a path you don’t want to admit.

 

This time, they stop reassuring you.

 

This time, they realise you’ve been right all along. That your intuition was spot on.

 

This time, a deeper, insidious problem starts to rear its ugly head in a way it never has before.

 

 

Before, when it just seemed like a figment of your imagination.

 

 

And then you have to acknowledge it. The most heartbreaking feeling of all. The one where your head and your heart take a big, deep breath and admit it to each other. That for all you’ve been doing to try and hold on to them, to give them the chance they deserve…there’s nothing you can do. Because while their body is still here, still letting you try to salvage some quality of life, it’s too late.

Because their mind, their soul, their character…everything you love so dearly about them, has already slipped away.

And in that heart shattering moment, you know what you have to do. You can let your head weigh up all the possibilities. But in the end, your head once again looks to your heart and comes to the same conclusion. It’s too early, far, far too early. But your friend has taken the decision out of your hands. They’ve decided that it’s time to let go. That, ready or not, it’s time to say goodbye.

 

The reality is that you’ll never be ready.

 

It doesn’t matter how sure you are of your decision, how long you’ve had to say your goodbyes, kiss them all over their face, play with their ears and tell them you love them. Because from the moment the vet takes the lead rope from you, until the moment you know their heart has stopped, every cell in your body is screaming ‘NO! Not yet, I’ve changed my mind, come back! No!’

 

As you weep for the loss of a friend, as you kneel by them as their body becomes just that, a body, a shell, you still want them back. You will always want them back.

But you quietly sit with them and grieve. And then there comes a point when you know they really have left this world. They are no longer in pain. They are free.

 

And in that moment that tears you apart, you find a little peace.

 

Because it isn’t about you. It never was. It’s about loving and caring for your friend in their time of need. It’s about letting them go with dignity, when they tell you they are ready.

 

 

The reality is that you’ll never be ready. But you’ll know when they are.