Part 2 – “He Died With His Head in My Hands. And I Still Hear the Way He Exhaled.”
Some sounds stay with you.
Not the barking or the whining. Not the frantic scrabble of claws on linoleum or the yelps in the exam room.
No. The ones that stay are quieter.
A final exhale. The click of a leash being unclipped one last time. The sound of a man whispering “goodbye, baby” like he used to tuck her in at night.
Those are the ones that follow you home.
I had a dog once. Just one.
His name was Murphy. A mutt with one floppy ear and a lopsided tail, built like a potato sack with legs. He showed up outside the clinic in ’89, limping, ribs showing, but tail thumping so hard it left marks on the wall.
He picked me, not the other way around. Sat on my boot and wouldn’t move.
I let him stay.
Murphy was the kind of dog that made you laugh even when you were elbow-deep in something awful. He’d steal your sandwich, fart during surgery, chase shadows like they owed him money. Clients loved him. Staff adored him. He had a way of making scared kids forget they were scared.
He was with me through three hurricanes, one divorce, and the time I broke my collarbone falling off a ladder trying to fix the clinic sign myself. He sat beside me on the porch through more sleepless nights than I can count. Never asked for anything but a pat and a piece of whatever was on my plate.
And when he got sick, he never let on.
Not until the shaking started. Not until he stopped eating. Not until he looked at me that one morning — really looked — and I knew.
I cleared the schedule that afternoon. Locked the doors. Turned off the phones. Sat on the floor with him, cradled that dumb lopsided head in my lap, and stayed until he was gone.
He died with his head in my hands.
And I still hear the way he exhaled.
People think vets get used to it. The loss. The goodbye. The soft breath leaving a beloved body.
We don’t.
What we do is learn how to carry it. How to keep showing up.
How to put on clean scrubs, smile at the receptionist, and say “Bring in the next one” while your chest still aches from the last.
I had a woman come in last month. Widow. Mid-seventies. Carried a Chihuahua wrapped in an old baby blanket.
“He’s seventeen,” she said. “He doesn’t eat much now, but he still likes sunbeams.”
We ran the tests. The tumors lit up the screen like Christmas.
She nodded before I said a word. Held him close. Said, “Let’s make it peaceful.”
And then she asked if she could stay in the room. Like that was a rare thing.
Of course she stayed.
Of course I knelt beside her, and we waited until he was ready.
When it was done, she looked at me with a shaky smile and said, “That was the kindest room I’ve been in since my husband passed.”
I didn’t know what to say. Just squeezed her hand and stayed a little longer.
Sometimes that’s the only thing you can give someone. Time. Stillness. Space to cry.
You learn things in this job that they don’t put in brochures.
Like how love clings to fur, and how grief smells like cedar and antiseptic.
Like how a child will ask, “Is he going to heaven?” while holding a leash they’ll never use again.
Like how many men cry into dog fur and say, “Don’t tell my wife I’m crying.”
I’ve seen teenagers skip prom to sit with a dying labrador. Seen truckers drive 400 miles just to say goodbye. Seen a homeless man offer me his last twenty so I’d help his limping mutt.
I didn’t take the twenty.
I wrapped the dog’s paw, gave him meds, and added an extra can of food.
He came back six weeks later. Dog healed. Man smiling. Said it was the first time in years someone helped without asking what he had.
Those moments — the quiet ones — are what stay with you.
They asked me to train a new grad last fall. Fresh out of school, nervous, eager, full of textbook knowledge and not a lick of gut instinct.
First week, we had to put down a shepherd with end-stage arthritis. Owner was an old Marine. Big hands, trembling lips.
The new kid rushed it. Prepped the shot, clipped the leg, all by the book.
I stopped him.
Told him, “Sit first.”
He blinked. “Sir?”
“Sit with them. Look the dog in the eye. Let the owner breathe.”
He sat. Awkwardly.
The old Marine looked at me and said, “Thank you.”
Afterward, the kid followed me outside. “Why’d you make me wait?”
I lit a cigarette and said, “Because if you’re gonna take a life, you damn well better respect the weight of it.”
He nodded.
Two weeks later, he stayed late to hand-feed a paralyzed dachshund. Didn’t ask for overtime. Just did it.
I think he’s gonna be alright.
The clinic has changed. Everything’s digital. We’ve got air purifiers and ergonomic stools and a lobby that smells like lavender instead of iodine.
But I still keep the same exam table.
Scratched. Dented. The corner’s chipped where Murphy used to chew.
They offered to replace it.
I said no.
It’s got memories in it. Scratches from a golden retriever who hated his nails clipped. A dent from when a mastiff leapt onto it too soon. Faint stains from a day I don’t like to remember, but I never want to forget.
That table has held more love and more loss than most churches.
And I’ll keep it until I go.
I don’t know how much longer I’ll do this.
Some days, my hands shake too much to draw a clean line.
Some days, I forget the name of a drug I used to prescribe in my sleep.
But then a teenager brings in her first cat — a scrawny tabby with fleas and attitude — and asks if I can help.
And I do.
And she smiles like I gave her the moon.
And I remember why I stayed.
The drawer’s fuller now.
More collars. More notes. A chewed-up tennis ball from Murphy. A photo of me, thirty years younger, with a girl and her St. Bernard puppy. The girl came back last year — married now — and said, “You treated Bernie when I was eight. He’s the reason I became a vet.”
I gave her the photo. Told her to add to the story.
She will.
Here’s what I know after four decades:
It doesn’t get easier.
But it gets richer.
Every scar, every goodbye, every “thank you” mumbled through tears — it adds up.
Not in charts. Not in earnings. Not in online reviews.
But in the invisible thread that connects one soul to another.
Man to dog. Woman to cat. Vet to both.
And if you do it right — if you stay when it’s hard, and care when it’s thankless — that thread never breaks.
It just gets stronger.
So when my time comes — when my hands are still for good and the clinic goes dark — I hope someone remembers me the way I remember Murphy.
Not for what I fixed.
But for how I stayed.
Until the end.
