Recently I had to say goodbye to my dog, Sasha. She was 15 years old. I had her since she was 8 weeks old with the same adorable face. Sadly, the photo above is the very last photo that we took about 30 mins before we took her to the vet.

It was the first time that I’ve ever had to go through it putting one of my animals to sleep and was among the hardest things to deal watch as she went downhill until we had to take her to the vet’s office.

It all started with her having a tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure, similar to what I’ve gone through. She had several more over the next 4-6 weeks. They put her on seizure medication to try helping but they weren’t working. Funny enough, it was the same medication that I took when I was initially in the hospital.

Over the next few weeks we discovered that she had a heart murmur and I had to start sleeping on the couch to be by her side. That’s when we knew it wouldn’t be long. We could never foresee how quickly it would be after that. She soon stopped eating, even with an appetite stimulant, couldn’t go for walks longer than 25-50 feet, and became very lethargic. On her last night she lost complete bladder control and that was when we knew we had to take her to the vet the next morning.

Due to the pandemic they would only allow one of us into the room with her. That meant that my wife had to say bye to her outside and wait in the car until I left. At the same time, I didn’t have anyone to lean on as I watched Sasha take her last breaths. It was lonely for both of us for different reasons.

Going through all of this reminded me of two key points in my life: when I lost my mom during senior year of high school and when I had my initial seizures leading to my shoulders and brain surgery.

All of these experiences reinforced:

1. Community: We are all blessed with a community that cares about each one of us, no matter how small or large. When I lost my mom my close friends, town, and high school came together. When I had my seizures, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and companies supported us.

2. Be Thankful: Be thankful for the amount of time that you have with those who you hold near and dear to your heart. Whether that’s telling your loved one that you care for them and appreciate them or it’s giving your pet a few extra pets.

3. Capture Moments: While we’ve always had cameras, nowadays we have incredible cameras built right into our phones. Capture moments that you’ll always have to look back on. I have hundreds of photos of Sasha and our two cats, Darren and Bentley. And, of course, I have thousands of photos from a variety of events, vacations, etc. Ensure that you back these photos up so that you’ll always have them. Personally, I choose to back ours up to 4 different services for true redundancy (iCloud, Dropbox, Google Photos, and Amazon Photos).

We’ve all experienced loss at some point in our lives. What have you learned from loss when you’ve had to go through it?