Our dog Midnight is sick, very sick.  Any day he may die.  It seems we all either wake up each morning or come in from being away from home and hope 2 dogs greet us at the door, one of them being him of course.

We've had Midnight and his sister Princess for 10 years now, they are litter mates and have never been separated.  This will be hard not only for us, but for Princess as well. I don't consider Princess as one to grieve and that will be my mistake because right now she is still the impatient dog with ADHD that she has always been. Her brother is skin and bones, can't eat and barely walks, yet she will push past him for us to pet her, knocking him down in the process.  He was always the Alpha dog outside and inside always stayed where he could see all entry points into the house.  In fact he still does even though it is difficult for him to get up and great you, or stop you, but, he will bark. He is the lovable black lab that does, or when he could do, the silly dog stuff like rolling on his back with sheer joy for reasons we didn't understand, steal his sisters favorite ball or do the "sad face" on your knee for you to pet him.

His face is sad now, sometimes there is that shimmer of happiness which gives us hope, but we know the end is near.  I thought after all the vet visits and medication we could find the problem and fix it, sometimes you just have to let nature take its course.  I don't want to, but, I will.  My son is being very mature about this, you see Midnight is his dog and when he first started vomiting up his food he insisted we take him to the vet.  He even had to take him by himself when we were out of town and things didn't look so good.  We are letting him make the decision about how Midnight transitions out of this life.  I told him he could choose when we take him to the vet or let Midnight stay at home. He wants him home, and even as we see him getting weaker and weaker, Harrison is strong in his conviction that his puppa will be at home when his time comes.

I think we will find that Midnight will go to sleep and not wake up.  That is my hope.  He is not in any pain and actually acts as normal as he can given his condition. With all of the snow and the freezing temperatures he still wants to go outside and stays out for quite awhile until he comes back to the door to be let inside.  Now sometimes we have to find him because he looks lost, and sometimes we have to help him up the steps, but other times he walks up the steps and past us looking at us as if to say, "why are you staring at me?" and then goes and lays on the rug surveying his kingdom!

We love him, Dad, Mom Lauren and Harrison and it is hard to watch his demise.  I know it is hard for Lauren since she is away at college, I bet she dreads our texts worrying that we may have to tell her about "Mr. Magic", my nickname for him.  At no point will it be easy, but knowing the we loved him with all of our hearts and always want the best for him gives us comfort.

Someday soon, because he is not eating, he will not wake up from his nap. It will be a very sad day for us and many of our friends. We will remember the best times with Midnight.

 I will always remember the day this summer when I took both dogs on the bike path in my convertible, top down and enjoyed a good run. We stopped at the drug store on the way home and the dogs just watched the people go into the store and made no move to jump out of the car, nor did they bark at anyone.They were enjoying the sunshine and an outing with mom.

His favorite activity was long distance running with us. He and Princess trained with Darren and I for 5k, 10k and Half Marathon runs. He even trained with Darren for a Marathon. The dogs ran 20 miles and still sprinted the last stretch to Mom happy and excited, it was a different story for Dad, but they sure had an adventure!  We will be down one training partner this spring, but we have the medals from every race he trained for, they will be our memories.

Being the Mom I am I want to make him well and I know that is not possible. It is very hard to except that because I want to "fix him". He is my shadow, wherever I go he goes. Right now that is what I hold on to keep me from crying.  This is only a short story of our Midnight, the black Labrador Retriever purchased at a school auction and a beloved member of our family. He just keeps hanging on, I think he loves us too.