Larry Benjamin. Wordsmith. Writer. Author.

Coco the Glam Girl On Saturday we had to put our 14 year old Lhasa to sleep. It was a hard decision to make but it was the right decision. She was deaf. She was arthritic. She suffered from stage C mitral valve insufficiency with controlled congestive heart failure.. She was on Lasix, Vetmedin and Viagra for her heart; Proin for incontinence; Rimadyl for her arthritis. 10 pills a day in all. I understood—her heart was enlarged, she was losing weight, her kidneys, from the combined effects of heart disease and many meds, were dying. She was failing. My head understood this but my heart, breaking, did not. The heart wants what the heart wants and there in her vet’s office, my heart was tumbling over in my chest in a fit of want. I wanted Coco to stay, even as I knew she could not. I remembered sitting in the yard earlier in the day holding her and looking up at the sky which was cloudless and very blue and wondering: if I just sit here and hold her and refuse to move, will time...