The quality of life and euthanasia decision. It feels like the weight of the world is on top of you. Trying to find that elusive “right” time to make a decision for a beloved family member to transition.
It’s agonizing and possibly one of the hardest decisions you’ll ever face.
The gravity of making the decision feels insurmountable. This is not just about choosing the time to say farewell but knowing that your life will be forever changed.
It’s truly not human nature to have to make this decision. When it comes to the humans you love, hopefully you’re never faced with a decision similar to this.
But for the animals you love, it’s nearly a guarantee that you’ll have to think about this.
You may have heard or read that the literal translation of the word euthanasia is “good death”. And if you have ever watched a person pass in their own time, this definition does make sense.
Certainly, it doesn’t make it easy, though.
Five Dimensions of the Euthanasia Decision
The Hurt
Confronting the end of life decision for someone who has been an anchor in your life, is excruciating. Many people liken the decision to taking on all the pain so your beloved pet won’t have any.
I think that is a true and profound way to think about it. But, like many other things, it only softens the hurt of grief a little bit. There isn’t anything that relieves the pain.
The period of anticipatory grief is filled with an overwhelming amount of emotion. Dedication mixed with powerlessness, love, anxiety, anger, panic, worry.
And most of all, intense heartbreak thinking about living life, for even a moment, without your best friend.
The Guilt
There is a significant amount of responsibility in being a pet parent and guardian. Because of that, it can seem like you should be able to fix, control and remedy everything thrown at you.
Not always the case. Humans are not all powerful. We don’t have ultimate control over age, over illness progressing, and even over accidents happening.
We can not control death.
But having this human brain does you no favors when faced with an end of life decision. The feelings of failure, of not being the best guardian in years past, of not doing enough, of doing too much, seem to be endless.
Guilt and regrets seep into every little pore they can. That feeling of powerlessness? Yeah, humans hate that feeling and guilt is a handy replacer. As unfair as it is to you, there is a real sense of power over how guilty you feel about things.
The Planning
This one is a double edged sword. When things are happening around you that you don’t have much control over, the one thing you do have is control over your pet’s goodbye.
How bittersweet. I think it’s safe to say you’d rather be planning anything other than the perfect goodbye.
But, if given the chance, from the deepest part of your heart, you want to give your pet a soft and gentle goodbye. And a smidge of control here does feel like something. (Maybe even consider some bucket list items to do together).
The other side of the sword? Literally picking up the phone and calling to make these plans. You call to make a hair appointment, schedule your car for service or buy plane tickets.
Calling to make arrangements for someone you love to peacefully pass away is surreal. Putting it off, dialing and hanging up, canceling – it’s normal to do all that (and more). Some avoidence and disbelief are reasonable.
There may be moments between the planning and the actual farewell visit that resemble normalcy. A bite to eat, a walk to the water bowl. A tail wag. These moments can be confusing. The planning part takes courage and that courage may come from a place you’ve never had to tap into before.
The Fear
There is a really scary finality to this huge decision. Your mind is going in a thousand directions about yesterday, today and tomorrow. There is so much unknown that the uncomfortability is off the charts.
Fear of not recognizing the “right” time, fear of the appointment itself, fear of the moments afterwards and fear of a future in a changed world.
I think it’s fair to say that the fear of everything can be paralyzing.
So much so, that you often have to intentionally bring yourself back to the present and face all of it, with streaming tears and a broken heart.
The Future
Maybe more than anything, the future being a giant question mark is a significant dimension of the euthanasia decision.
When you can’t imagine what your life will be like, it’s really hard to have to be the one to decide ‘today is the day that starts the unknown future’.
What will grieving be like? What will morning, evenings, weekends be like? What will I be like? It’s impossible not to think about, and to be nervous, sad and angry about. And it’s normal to ache for a time when you weren’t faced with saying goodbye.
Even if this is something you’ve lived through before, the euthanasia decision is never easy and honestly, not always so straightforward.
Anticipatory grief and grief after goodbye bring challenges, hard decisions and heartbreak. Be gentle with yourself.
Society and others looking into your life through their lens may think this decision is obvious or clear cut. Those people are not you. It’s ok to acknowledge that even when you know this is the hardest right decision, it’s still feels impossible.
