20/01/2025
How can it be? You would have been 20 today. They said you were 10 years old, a best guess since you were old but not ancient. They took you, sedated you, shaved you. They held your leg as it came off, having only been held to you by your tightly matted fur. They twisted your swollen, necrotic paw completely around for photo evidence before clipping the single strand that held it to your body. They pulled about half your teeth, a solid mass of decay and rot. They removed a lifetime of fur, a hard shell containing your tiny broken body within.
I don't know why they woke you up. I don't know what they saw and believed in. I don't know how they decided to give you a second life instead of releasing you right then from your pain. There were a few times in the beginning of fostering you that I saw you trip and jam your little nub into the floor. You would scream, and I would hold you as we both cried, and I would wonder if this was fair for you, if we should let you go rather than ask you to do this. It was so much healing both physically and emotionally. When had you last felt a hand stroking your head or rubbing your little ears?
Whatever they saw and believed in, you showed us right away. You had so much joy. You had so much love to give. You had so many adventures left. It was never enough, how could I even begin to show you what you'd missed for 10 years? The life you had deserved all along but were denied and subjected to a lifetime of unimaginable, torturous pain as your own limbs were slowly self amputated by your own fur?
Yet you thrived. We did physical therapy all the time, and you loved the training and games. You got so strong, so healthy, your rehab team approved us to do agility classes. We played for a year before it was too much to ask of you. We went to the mountains. We went to events. We went everywhere, and everyone knew you. We'd go into a store and the employees would light up, announcing to each other that Amaze-Bobb was here. Your story went viral. You gave a woman named Peggy the motivation and mental strength to make it to the top of Mount Fuji. I don't think you had any idea what you meant to anyone in the world but to me and Nate. You knew us, and we knew you, and it was an honor to care for you.
7 years ago was your last birthday on earth. You made it another couple months before you were ready. When we got you we promised you two things. First that we would do everything we could to take care of you and give you all that we could. And second, that when it was time we would not hesitate, for you had already suffered too much in this life. We held our promises. We miss you so much. We still talk about you, and we think of you always.
