End of the Line

[Skiploder]

After a tad over 14 years with me, the matriarch of my thrasops jacksonii clan has an appointment with the vet and then a one way ticket to the big tree in the sky.

She lost her eye almost two years ago and has slowly gone blind in the other. She hasn't been able to shed on her own for over a year. But I told myself that as long as she could hang out in the crab apple tree while I work in the yard I would do my best to keep her going.

Today as I watched her, all I could think about was how how wretched she looked. She has been open mouth breathing for the last three week (no RI) and something is wrong with her salivary/venom glands - it's like the "off" button doesn't work. I decided that there is nothing for her in this life anymore and that my continued efforts to keep her going were doing her no good.

There is a twinge of doubt here, that maybe I could do a little more for her, but when I step back and look at it objectively, maybe that "little more" is doing the right thing and holding her one more time - this time while the vet puts her gently to sleep.

I have no idea her exact age. She was a Ugandan import and was probably a few years old when I got her. She taught me everything I know about thrasops, and she was a patient teacher - never snappy, always calm, one of those animals that exudes gentleness.

As corny as it sounds, I'm going to miss her. I'd like to think that she had a better life with me than she would have had in the forest - if you will all allow me that conceit.

Anyway, this was her when she could see, could shed, and didn't have a drool/venom goo dribbling out of her mouth. This was her when she was in all her glory:



Adios, Twizzler. If there is an afterlife, and I may be permitted just one snake to accompany me there with the rest of those I love, let the record show I pick you.