Any pet owner knows that there can be some difficult decisions to be made in regards to his or her pet’s health. Unfortunately, our furry companions develop injuries and diseases just like humans and sometimes the best option is to euthanize them. My family recently decided to put down my dog after ten wonderful years of owning him (during which he broke things, ate things, and ran away several times), and it has been one of the most difficult grieving processes I’ve ever had.

Grieving began for me when I saw my father stare at the floor in the vet’s office while my dog awaited his fate. How could I possibly hold it together when one of my biggest role models looks like he’s going to fall apart? We talked about how annoying our dog had been for his whole life, the time he eaten a spool of fishing line, how great of a bird hunter he was, and how smart he was for being able to open every single door in our house. We laughed and started to tear up, and as the vet walked in the room with the syringe that would soon make my dog’s heart beat stop, the strongest man I know simply looked at the floor, away from all of us, and it broke my heart.

Grieving was the car ride home without my dog in the car. I choked back tears as I told myself that I couldn’t cry because I was driving and it would probably upset my dad even more. I kept imagining what my dog looked like when I left him in that room, like he was sleeping, just like he did in an extremely inconvenient place on the kitchen floor while we were trying to make dinner. He was supposed to be in the car with us, sticking his head out of the window, but instead we left him, his body losing heat to the tile floor, never to be warmed under the sheets on my bed with me ever again.

Grieving was coming home with a faded blue collar and just the memory of the dog that once wore it, setting it down on the counter, and going in the back yard to lay in the grass where my dog use to lay under the tree. I had sat in that spot with him many times before. I use to hug him, make him make SnapChat pictures with me, and I felt loved when he gave me kisses because I was the only one to ever receive them. But this time I laid there without my dog beside me and felt a tear roll down my cheek, just as slowly as my dog’s life came to an end just an hour earlier.

Grieving is trying to hold back tears (and failing to do so) weeks later as my boyfriend holds me in the middle of the night and tells me that it’s going to be okay. I tell him about how I held on to my dog from the time the vet walked into the room with that fatal syringe until I felt my dog’s heart stop beating. He hugs me tighter and I think about how I squeezed my dog one more time, kissed him on top of his head, and left the room. I cry more and eventually fall asleep, only to dream of the goofy, stubborn dog that I once called mine.

I’m not sure if grieving will ever truly end, although it has gotten easier. I still think about my dog and sometimes cry because I wholeheartedly miss having him around, but I know that putting him down was much better than putting him through the necessary measures to take care of his illness. Grieving the loss of a pet is never an easy thing, but there’s beauty in realizing the significance that a living thing with no human voice fit into our lives and became part of our family and loved us to no end. That dog was loved by me for his whole life and although he couldn’t stay around for much of mine, the thought of him will linger until I cease to exist, and hopefully by that point we’ll meet again.