Goodbye Lilo

I had to make the decision today.  I went to the barn and Lilo couldn't get up.  She made a grunting welcome sound, tried to rise, and then fell back.  I told her it was ok...she didn't need to get up on my account.  I went back into the house and got a pan full of warm molasses water and a blanket.

She drank the water greedily and stopped shivvering as I placed the down covers over her back.  But she was couching and grinding her teeth, her eyes closed to the world around her.  She moved her head toward my chest and rested it there.

I sat for a long time just rubbing her cheeks.  She let her head sag and she leaned into me some more.  I told her it was ok.  I understood.

I got up and called the only person I could think of - our butcher.  Joe told me that he'd be there as soon as possible.  I spent the next hour crying, talking to friends, and wandering the property.  I eventually ended up back with Lilo.  She was the same as when I had left her.  She sat with her eyes closed, her nose full of snot, her teeth grinding, and her body shaking.  I could see that she had been having diarrhea but was too weak to get up when she went.

I went out to the gate to meet Joe.  He came back to the barn the way he always has, with his short 22 in his hand and a purpose in his step.  We opened the barn door to find Lilo a few feet from where I left her.

He walked up to her and asked if she were the one.  I said yes and began to explain.  I had just enough time to cover my ears when the shot went through her head.  She slipped further down the wall and shook.  I shook with her.  I have seen many animals go through this process.  We have always told the boys that the shakes and twitches are the energy leaving the animal's body.  But thinking about it now, Lilo's spirit left her the minute that bullet hit her head.  The twitches were nothing but a body.

And that's how Joe treated it.  Now, I am not faulting him.  I called him because I knew that he could do something that I couldn't do.  He could shoot her and deal with her body in a way that I couldn't.  But I wasn't prepared to watch him drag her out of the barn, her head trailing behind, and then curl her up into a blue barrel.  She looked so small in the bottom of that barrel.  And as I closed the gate behind the truck, I whispered "Goodbye Lilo."