(for Uni)
I had been watching the sunlight for days. In the last week, as Uni’s body failed her... as she ate less, walked less, trembled more... I began noting the time the light crossed her bed. It came between 2:00 and 3:00 PM, when the sun poured through the window and pooled gently on the covers. It was her favorite thing in the world… to curl into that sunbeam, eyes closed, ears twitching, dreaming, warmed and weightless. I tracked the time precisely. I was preparing. Not because I wanted to… no. but because love sometimes means readiness. Sometimes love means knowing exactly where the light will fall. She was barely eating now. The seizures came more frequently. Sometimes she fainted mid-step. Sometimes she stared into nothingness, her body frozen in invisible pain. It was torture. I felt helpless. I raged!! I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in, throwing a Hail Mary across a silent void. I begged for more time. Less suffering. A miracle. None came. We researched specialized vets, therapies, diets. We were willing to spend any amount of money to help her. Nothing reversed the decline. And I remembered the pamphlet at the vet… The one about “In-Home Euthanasia Services”. When I first saw it on the desk, I looked away… refusing to entertain such an idea. Pretended it wasn’t for us. But it stayed with me. And now, the time had come. We made the call. Scheduled the visit. That morning, I opened the window wide. Cleaned her bed. Laid out her favorite blanket... the one with the stars. And when 2:30 came, the sunlight broke through... soft and warm. It spilled across the floor, then her bed, just like it had every day before. But today, it was sacred. The vet arrived. Gentle hands. A quiet voice. And then... the injection. It stole all that mattered to me. But it spared her the meaningless suffering this life gives so freely to the innocent. She trusted me. She always had. We held her as she passed. Whispered that she was brave, that she was everything. 2:40pm. Uni died suspended in a sunbeam, just as she had lived a thousand afternoons before. I remembered a spring afternoon, years earlier, when she rolled onto her back in that same pool of light, paws curled, snoring softly as dust motes swirled above her... like sacred galaxies It had been a perfect day. And I hadn’t known it. The light had caught the motes in midair... particles suspended, reflecting light, glowing. It reminded me of that Carl Sagan quote about the Pale Blue Dot... how everything we’ve ever known... every joy and sorrow... lived on that suspended speck of dust. Looking at her in that moment... I felt the same. She was my Pale Blue Dot. The one life where all others orbited. The center of my gravity. My meaning. My joy. The universe could collapse. But she... she had made it worth being in. Afterward, I never moved her bed. I made a vow... I would never leave her, just as she had never left me in all those years of panic attacks, insomnia, and fear. We took her to the crematorium. Waited. Brought her home the same day. We placed her urn beside her photo, a red grave candle, and a sad hour clock I’d ordered from Etsy. I set the clock to 2:40 PM... the moment of her death... and never touched it again. I called it… “the hour that still ticks inside me.” The candle flickered beside her. We never let it burn out... Actively buying new ones to replace before the flame goes out. Some nights, I sit in the dark and watch the red light pulse against the side of her urn. I whisper her name, over and over, until the silence softens. And still... in that beam of memory... in that ritual flame... she remains. Suspended in a sunbeam. Eternally. I love you, Uni