Today we ended Faith’s life. She was, according to the records, 19 years old.
She had cancer and while still able to go up and down the stairs, take short walks, and eat two square meals a day (her favorite 8 minutes of the day), the tumors were at a point of not just being an annoyance. They caused her pain, and it was clear that as they were now spreading quickly, there was more of that in her future. And so we made an appointment and drove her to the Vet in the Palisades. I was able to hold it together through the signing of release forms, and the initial wait in the entry, but when it was time to take her back, Gary and she went together for the last walk down the hall.
They tried to get her lay down on the floor, but she wanted to sit up, so Gary wrapped his arms around her and they administered the drug. He said she peacefully began to breathe more slowly, until she was no longer with him. He said she looked angelic. The doctor left him alone with her and he said he lost it, beginning to cry, his tears spilling down onto the front of his blue t-shirt like drops of heavy rain. When he came out of the building, I was waiting in the car, and while we knew we’d done the right thing, the strong thing, the best thing for her – it was so incredibly hard.
I remember it like it was yesterday – laying in bed, completely entranced in the fiery excitement of it all. It was nothing I had ever experienced. My senses were heightened, an obsession had begun. 
In the French family, we sleep under quilts. Even when a duvet is
involved, a quilt absolutely must lie atop it. We are used to the
weight of them, and among the five of us, own around three dozen. Each
one of these was handmade, stitch-by-stitch, by my mother. To get an
idea of the scope of this, she quilts daily, and a single quilt takes
over a year to complete. She does not believe in idle hands, or more
precisely, cannot relate to them. Last year I found a melon-sized
rubber band ball sitting on her desk, held it up to my brother and
asked, simply, “Why?” “Because,” he said, “It’s what she does. She
makes things.”
I love chocolate. I have always loved chocolate. I have lived my life
by the principle, So much chocolate, so little time. The expansiveness of my love of chocolate is such that it would be impossible for me to name a favorite – it would be like asking me to pick a favorite among my children. (Or maybe not exactly like that; after all, I only have one child).
