One November Day
It was still dark when I awoke on Chulo’s last morning. I breathed a prayer for courage before tiptoeing downstairs. He lay on the living room couch with my husband, Johan. They had slept this way for the past month. Chulo lifted his head and blinked drowsily at me. I started tidying the house, powerless to do much else.
The internal conflict had quieted by then. He had steadily declined in recent years, faster in recent months. The previous two weeks were on borrowed time. When the bad days outnumbered the good, I made the call. I had dreaded it, but it was the right one. It would take place at home, where he was most at peace.
I squeezed a puree into a ceramic dish and topped it with whipped cream, which he had recently discovered at an ice cream shop along our stroller route. He enjoyed it so much that we bought him his own can from the grocery store. After years on a carefully monitored diet, it didn’t matter what he ate now. He was on his favorite windowsill when I came to feed him. The light of dawn revealed a sky thick with clouds.
Pills, powders, liquids, and ointments cluttered the kitchen counter — a laxative, a stool softener, a potassium supplement. There was a phosphate binder, an antibiotic, an appetite stimulant. I debated which ones to give him, deciding to skip them all. He didn’t need them anymore.
Chulo’s skinny frame appeared in my peripheral vision. He liked to drink from the sink after his breakfast. When I hoisted him onto the counter and turned on the faucet, he angled his tongue toward the trickle of cool water. I watched his throat contract with each swallow, ready to catch him if he lost his balance. He drank for a few minutes and jumped down by himself.
Then it was time for my breakfast. I brought my oatmeal out and sat beside him. He perched on his sill, the antique radiator below hissing heat.Celtic harp music played faintly in the background as we gazed out on the gray day. Brown leaves scattered in the wind. I reflected on the moment’s serenity — and its finality. In 16 years, I never had to eat a meal alone.
I transferred him to the sofa and tried to memorize every detail of his physical presence: the silk of his fur under my hand, his warmth against my side, his cozy scent. If this was our last snuggle, I wanted to savor every second. I forced myself to be fully present — not only for him, but for me.
He eventually stood up, stretched, and returned to his spot. It was all he asked for in the end, so I adorned it with blankets and pillows. A mourning dove on the neighbor’s roof seemed to watch him. I wondered if it was an ancestor sent to escort him home. As if on cue, the clouds tunneled open, and a shaft of sunlight fell upon his head.
At one o’clock, thevisiting doctor arrived in pale pink scrubs. She explained the process to us in a calming voice. If Chulo noticed her, he didn’t react. Or perhaps he understood her purpose. I had told him an angel would take him to The Beautiful Place. A fresh bowl of dessert distracted him as she injected a sedative into his side to relax him. Within seconds, his lapping slowed, eyes slightly open but seeing nothing.
I draped him over my shoulder and reclined on the couch so that our hearts aligned. He didn’t flinch when the doctor inserted a catheter into his leg. She asked if we were ready. We weren’t, of course. But he was. She slowly released a liquid into his IV. Moments later, she put her stethoscope to his chest and said, “His heart isn’t beating.” There was no gasp, no sigh. He was simply there one second and gone the next.
“Good job, buddy…” I praised him through tears. I didn’t just mean how he died — I meant how he lived.
As I held him, the doctor pressed one of his paws into a piece of soft clay. She shaved off a small patch of his fur with an electric razor and placed it in a plastic bag. They would join his photo, his sweater, and the ashes we would pick up later that week. It was important for us to have these keepsakes of our boy; to remind us he hadn’t been a dream.
Johan laid Chulo on the doctor’s soft cat bed. She gently closed his eyelids and wrapped him with a fleece. He could no longer feel cold but seeing him tucked in comforted me. He looked as if he were merely asleep. I carried the bed downstairs to her van and set it in the passenger seat. He was not in that body, but we kissed his forehead anyway — more for us than for him.
Laura Plummer is an award-winning writer, poet, and filmmaker. Originally from Massachusetts, she currently calls Lakeside home. Explore her work at lauraplummer.me.
We invite original essays of up to 700 words for Among Animals. Tell us about the creatures who share our lives—wild or domestic— and the ways they challenge, comfort, and change us. Email submissions to editorelojodellago@gmail.com with the subject line: “Among Animals.”
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- Among Animals – November 2026 - October 29, 2026
