09/07/2026
This one hurt the most. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t old. He was only 10.
I left the house that morning, and he was perfectly fine, just relaxing with his sister. When I came home, he was hiding. He refused to eat and kept finding different places to hide.
I woke up every 30 minutes to an hour to check on him. He could hardly walk. Even his favorite treats were only sniffed and left untouched. I watched him sit in front of his water fountain and stare at it, unable to drink.
I was desperately trying to reach the vet, playing phone tag and trying to figure out what was happening. I cancelled my road trip because I knew I needed to stay and figure out what to do.
Every time I checked on him, he was somewhere new—the bathtub, the sink, his favorite box.
At 5:30 a.m., I got up to check on him again.
He was in my toilet.
I gently moved him into a towel in the bathtub and carefully cleaned the toilet water off of him.
Finally, I was able to get him to the vet.
My sweet Ashes.
Lovingly nicknamed “Ash Hole,” he had suffered a stroke while I was away.
The guilt of not being home when it happened is unbearable. I keep wondering how many hours passed between the time I left and the time I came home, and how long he had to endure that stroke without me there.
The vet told me he was severely dehydrated because the stroke had paralyzed his mouth. He couldn’t drink. His tongue was “frozen,” and he could barely open his mouth.
We made the heartbreaking decision to let him go.
I held his paw and kissed his head. Tears fell onto him as I apologized over and over for not being home when he needed me most.
I have lost other babies before, but this grief feels different.
He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t old.
He was only 10.
And I keep wishing I could go back and be there for him when he needed me most. 🤍
