Entropy

I remember on the Thursday, two days before she died, walking home from work in the evening and looking west to the beautiful orange sunset, and hoping that the universe would spare me at least one more day to spend with her. I was terrified that she might have died when I was at work and that I'd come home to her corpse laying in some dark corner of my apartment. With fear, I unlocked the door to my apartment and was relieved to see her sitting on the bench of my exercise machine. She just stared at me, unmoved, as I took off my jacket and shoes. Usually she would come and greet me by the door and sniff all of my stuff and anticipate the food I would give her. But that Thursday was different. She just sat and watched me. I was just happy she was alive. I had Friday off, and so I knew I could spend all of the next day with her as I knew deep inside it would probably be her last few days alive. She was in pain, it seemed, but I just couldn't bring myself to take her to the vet as I knew she'd have to be put to sleep and at the time I just could not psychologically bear the thought of her being dead, even though I knew her imminent death was a near certainty.

She died the following Saturday on the couch right next to me. I never had anything close to me die before. I've been spared the deaths of any close family members and friends. So Sheba dying hit me hard. I keep replaying in my memory the tiny whimper she let out just moments before she died as she lay nearly motionless on the sofa next to me. And so as is generally customary, I had her cremated. I decided to keep her ashes, which I got a few weeks ago. I held them in my hand, astonished that this pile of disorganized matter used to by my adorable Sheba. But alas, I know it is no fiction that all things break down. All order eventually surrenders to disorder - it is the second law of thermodynamics. It will be my fate as well as yours, and it will also be the fate of the entire universe. Entropy eventually conquers all; some of us sooner than later.