Thank you for your kind words. I can tell you I did what amounts to abuse. I didn't want him in my house. I held a hatred for him for a short while. I call it abuse because what I did, in those moments was feel anger, and I took it out on him. I was thinking back and remembered more in writing that like a flash back. He jumped in the shower once to just investigate it, and I turned it on, but the door was shut. He wasn't in there long he got right out. I also dumped water on him one time. And left him in a bathroom for 3 hours another time. My guilt is in the look that is forever etched in my mind of his face, in total fear of me. It literally makes me sick. I had to leave work yesterday I got up from my desk and walked out when the memories came back. It's all I can think of. It's deplorable. It's disgraceful. It's disgusting. Even the times I just ignored him, the thought that he lived for 4 months in total agony and fear. My god, how could I have done that? I was never abused nor have any urge to do anything like this, but for some reason i did. I have tried so hard to make up for this wrong, but I have learned the most crippling lesson that life has every taught me. You can not undue the past. I must own the decisions I've made. I refuse to deny nor forget what I did. It happened. I thought of it often, but he was there for me to hold, to give him a kiss and in tears tell him how sorry I was, to love him with every piece of my soul in those moments. I know he forgave me. He was never fearful of me after that because I never did it again. Yet I can not forgive myself. I guess I always thought I would have more time to make this horrible wrong right but to lose him so suddenly and to wonder if he had this heart condition when I did those things to him, make me sick. I grieve for him like a person. A part of my soul died with him. He represented the very best of me and the worst of me, and I feel like I let him down. The vet says there is nothing I could have done. But he was still warm when I found him. He said it must have happened minutes before I came downstairs. All I think of are the promises I made to him that I would take care of him forever and all the times he was there for me. And in his moment of need, I wasn't there. I was upstairs showering when he was dying on a cold floor. I let him down. I wasn't there. Even if I couldn't have saved him, I wish he would not have died alone. I wish I could have held him tight, told him it was ok, and that I loved him so much, and was so sorry.

I have a very big heart. I think sometimes people can rationalize actions because those actions aren't far from who they really are. I'm not what I was to him those 4 months, I try to live everyday as an honest, loyal, good person who wants love and has a lot of love to give. My actions were so far from who I'am that I find them impossible to process or to forgive. This death has triggered a sense of post traumatic stress, and I deserve each moment of it's horrible grasp. I truly feel there is no way to fully undo the wrongs of my actions. I feel worthless. I gained nothing from what I did. It was misplaced anger, resentment and frustration for having to give up my own space for something I did'nt want at all nor could have, a pet. That is not his fault. That is my fault for even viewing that in such a sick, horrible, immature and egocentric way. He was innocent. And I'm forever guilty of what I did. I own it. I just don't know how to make the hurt stop. I know it's an animal and I don't mean to trivialize war, but I feel the way people describe having flash backs, I just can't seem to get these images from my mind. And I guess in a way, his passing represents a clock whose time has run out. I guess I felt for so long that as long as there were times to be shared, I would get to a place of acceptance. I now know and realize that no matter what I ever did, even if he had lived to be 20, would ever shake me of these repressed feelings that are now ever present because our time together is over.

I would literally do anything. I would take 5 years off my life, for the option of erasing those 4 months from ever happening. I would. Without a second thought. To live my life in dignity vs the eternal haunting of the way I acted would be worth it. Something I wouldn't even give second thought too. But I know that isn't an option so in a way, I wonder if this hell that I'm in, is just a consequence for what I did. And I deserve it.