Henry

I’ve had a sleepless night. I did what I do best in situations like this to distract me: write. Please don’t read any further if a dog’s fate would ruin your mood for the next few weeks.

In 2022 I went for ice cream in Saarbrücken. It was really delicious ice cream. The place is said to be one of the best ice cream shops in Saarbrücken. I’ll take their word for it. I don’t know that many ice cream shops in Saarbrücken. But I burst out laughing when I saw the cups.

Of course I asked to take one of the cups home. It still sits on my shelf today, among many other memories. But why did I burst out laughing?

Allow me to introduce: Henry. A Boxer–Border Collie mix. Big. Clumsy.¹ And apparently he had a doppelgänger in the ice cream business. But above all, he had a big heart.

When I got my aortic aneurysm diagnosis, I was staying with my family, completely devastated. And this big dog simply sat down next to me on the sofa, and somehow everything was a little bit better. He could tell I wasn’t doing well. From then on, we had a special bond. At least I had one with him.

Yesterday everything happened very fast. In the morning I had still taken him for a walk and had been glad that his digestive trouble, which had come and gone since his early “youth” and had been bothering him again for a few days, finally seemed to be settling down (you cannot imagine how happy you can be about the contents of a bag you lug behind your dog at six in the morning).

In the afternoon his spleen ruptured. Ultrasound and X-rays showed numerous further lesions in other organs. It was a devastating diagnosis. For us, it came completely out of the blue.

Yesterday afternoon, shortly before four, we had to accept that further medical treatment would have been more for us than for the dog. Yesterday afternoon, shortly before four, we had to let Henry go. He was almost 13 years old. Since yesterday afternoon, shortly before four, he has left a big, clumsy gap in all of our lives here. Goodbye, Henry!