Canada

I think if he'd known there would be an option, once we'd learned for sure if it was going to be terminal or not, he'd have chosen to die with dignity. Our family has been split apart, nothing is the same. None of us will ever be the same ... it's hard, you try to move on, but just knowing the mental pain he had to have gone through just kills me. My dad was one who could never hurt anyone or anything - he was a horse/dog/any kind of animal whisperer all in one. And kids ..... they loved him and his teasing, climbing on him, messing up his hair (he looked like Elvis sometimes - such a head of thick hair - his granddaughters would attack him and curl it, style it .... he just sat and watched his hockey game, sometimes flinching a bit, but it was hilarious to watch. He never met a person who he didn't consider a friend forever and everyone felt the same back. Sorry, I just love to talk about him as he was.

My best friend and I have talked about the end of our lives a lot. We joke that we're going to just head out on foot on the coldest day in winter to some isolated place and that will be it. Maybe it's not joking, I don't know. But knowing that we will have a choice now is so good. I've always wondered why we work so hard (rightly so) to make our pet's end painless but couldn't do it for ourselves.