Let's just get this out of the way: my last childhood dog passed earlier today.

Her biological sister passed last year and their brother, a few months before.

For both of those, I was unable to be there as my job wouldn't allow me to leave my job to say my final goodbyes.

With my girl today; my whole family was in tears, but not me.

She just turned 14 and has been struggling immensely doing the smallest of things, and you could just see on her face that she was done.

We all knew it was time and decided on the date (today).

I held her paw the whole time, even as she took her last breath. But you could just see that she was finally at peace. She was relaxed, she wasn't hurting, and she gave us lots of kisses even as she was going.

When the time came to move her with the stretcher, none of my family had the composure to move her, so I did it myself.

I laid her body down on her pillow, with her favorite toy, and the last thing I told her before the door closed was, "until we meet again little girl, you tell your brothers and sisters that we miss you and love you all very much, and we'll see you soon."

My family asked why I didn't cry, what I said to her, etc. But I refuse to tell them the truth.

The truth is, I'm broken. Broken about my little girl, and just broken as a whole, but I refuse to break in front of others. The truth is, the day I should have died 2 years ago, is the day I died. I've never been the same since.

And now that I've lost the last piece of my life who truly loved me for me and not anything I've done, I really wish I had died those years ago.