One Sick Puppy

 In the height of all the lockdowns, my son's' vet canceled the spay/neuter appointment for his dogs. Enter into the world, 9 baby heelers. Gulp.

Anyway, one of the puppies was not doing well. My daughter-in-law, in spite of being a busy, sleep-deprived mom, took the puppy on when the mom rejected it. Our DIL named him Sven (after the character on Frozen ...we were all going through our "reindeer are better than people" phase, and it fit). She carried him around under her hair to keep him warm, and she fed him every two hours. Weeks of sleepless nights and relentless care resulted in absolutely nothing. He died. It was a lot of effort, expense, and emotional exhaustion for what seemed like wasted effort. There is not one single thing she could have done more perfectly, but he still did not make it. It seemed like a big waste.

At the time, she and I both had situations/people we had poured all we had into, and they still took a left turn. We sat down and talked and realized it was a very poignant parallel to what we had sown into things and people that chose death anyway. Nothing we did or did not do could have changed the outcome. There was something intrinsically wrong with the person/situation that made it unfixable. While we were waiting for it to change, it actually was changing US into what WE needed to be for the next season in life. We only needed to know we gave it our all and our best. Sometimes it is just too sick for it to get better, and it is time to cut the losses and move on.