return to the earth

On May 6th (not this past Friday but the Friday before that), I saw my cat Simon for the first time in I don't know how many days, barely moving, barely breathing, barely living.

My mom and I decided to put him to sleep at 8, as soon as the veterinary hospital opened.

My dad wouldn't go.

Crying is bad for your face, everyone knows that and so did I but I couldn't stop.

At first my mom didn't want to be in the room when Simon died, which I couldn't and still can't understand, but she changed her mind when I said I wanted to stay.

He was so dehydrated that the vet couldn't find a vein. My mom and I held Simon down on the examining table and he kicked his back legs and meowed and I couldn't help but think that putting him down was a mistake.

Then before we knew it he was gone.

My mom called me in at 9, but I didn't actually show up at school until 20 minutes later because I had to pull myself together.

I decided ahead of time that because I didn't want to talk about it I wasn't going to tell my Japanese teacher (or anyone, for that matter, with the exception of Di, Jackie, and Resa), but she already knew, so we ended up talking about it anyway. She told stories. About her grandfather, who was in a coma for 6 years before he finally died. She said his tongue dried out and shriveled up. And about a friend of hers who stuffed his/her pet after it died. She said, "かわいそうね。土に帰りたいのに。�

Roughly translated, "Pitiful, isn't it? The pet's spirit wants to return to the earth but it can't."

Return to the earth.