DYING WITH DIGNITY: HONORING BLINK'S FINAL CHAPTER

As a speech therapist, I've learned that words are just one language. Blink was fluent in all the others. For years, he worked alongside me with children who struggled to speak—kids with speech delays, children locked in selective mutism, those who'd given up trying. He never asked them to perform or prove themselves. Instead, he created a space where communication could happen naturally, where silence didn't mean failure, where trying mattered more than perfect production. Countless children came to him feeling trapped in their own silence and left knowing they had a voice. For that gift, he asked only for consistency and care.

The most profound lesson he taught me, though, came at the end—when I had to make an impossible choice.

When the diagnosis came—terminal liver cancer—it felt like a betrayal of everything he'd given. This horse who had spent his final years healing others now had to face his own mortality. I wanted to believe we'd have more time. Time to prepare. Time to say goodbye properly.

In those final days, people asked me questions that stung. Why was I euthanizing him now? He still looked good. His coat was shiny. Couldn't I wait until he looked worse? Why was I spending money on the premium hay if the end was near? These questions came from those who didn't want to see a horse die but I saw more.

What outsiders couldn't see was what a shiny coat concealed.

A year earlier, Blink maintained his weight beautifully on a handful of balancer. He was efficient, comfortable. But by the end, I was feeding him nine pounds of the best senior feed I could buy, and he was still slipping. Everything was a struggle just to stay the same. Every single pound of food he ate came at a cost—his system working overtime, struggling to process what his liver could no longer handle. It was like watching someone run faster and faster just to stand still.

More than the numbers, though, it was the changes in his behavior that revealed what was happening inside. Blink adored the field. He cherished being outside in the sunshine, rolling in the dust, just existing in that big open space. But near the end, he wouldn't even go to the gate. I'd open the stall door, and he'd stand there as if trying, but something in him said no. Inside his stall—that familiar space where he'd brought so much peace to others—there was a restlessness I'd never seen before from him. He wasn't dramatic about it. Blink never was. But I could see it in the way he stood, in the way he breathed.

I realized I was looking at two different horses. There was the Blink that others saw—groomed, fed, loved, and appearing to be in good care. And then there was the Blink I knew intimately, the one whose essence was betraying him from the inside out, who had stopped wanting the things he cherished most.

Years of working as a speech therapist taught me to read what isn't said out loud. Communication happens in countless ways—in posture, breathing patterns, eye contact, the tension in a body, the subtle shifts in how someone moves through space. I learned to listen to silences and watch for the messages people send without words. That training shaped how I worked with Blink in therapy, and it absolutely shaped what I saw in his final days.

My years working with horses reinforced something profound about healing and dignity. Horses are masters of nonverbal communication. They have no choice but to be honest—they can't hide what they're feeling the way humans can. When the children came to Blink broken and trying to pretend they were okay, he saw through it. He responded to their truth, not their performance. And that's what he offered them: permission to stop pretending.

When his body began to fail, he communicated that truth to me the same way. True care means seeing beyond the surface. It means honoring what an animal needs, not what we want to believe about them. It means understanding that sometimes the most loving thing you can do isn't to keep fighting, but to let go with grace.

The hardest part of caring for something deeply is knowing when holding on becomes selfish.

When I chose to say goodbye, I picked a time when we still had good moments left, when he was comfortable enough to receive my love. I knew it was right. But that didn't make it any easier. My heart broke even as I knew I was making the right choice.

Others questioned my timeline. They asked if I was sure, if there was anything else, if I should hold on longer. And all I could think was: holding on means waiting for him to suffer more so that I can avoid the pain of letting him go. That's not love. That's not what we do for beings who can't speak for themselves.

So I gave him the best. Yes, the premium hay. Absolutely. He was a king, and I believed deeply that dying horses should be treated like royalty on their way out. The premium feed, the gentle handling, the time spent with him—none of it was wasted. It was exactly what he needed. It reflected what he had given us.

Think about it this way: if you were old, if your body was failing, if things inside you were breaking down in ways that couldn't be fixed—wouldn't you want to be cared for with that kind of reverence? Wouldn't you want comfort instead of crisis? Wouldn't you want your final chapter to be written with dignity?

Blink spent his life giving to others. When his time came to receive, I wanted to provide him with everything.

Euthanizing a horse is never easy. There will always be those who question the timing. But I've learned that the most compassionate thing you can do isn't to keep a horse alive as long as possible. It's to let him go when you still have moments left to say goodbye, when he can pass peacefully rather than in crisis, when his final days are characterized by comfort instead of decline.

He's gone now, and the space where he was is enormous. Those he helped are still out there carrying pieces of his quiet strength. They remember the calm he brought them, the steadiness, the sense that they could be themselves in his presence. And I remember a horse who taught me one final lesson about what it means to care well: it means knowing when to let go, choosing dignity over duration, and treating every stage of a horse's life—including the end—with the respect and reverence he deserves.

Rest well, Blink. You were an extraordinary horse, and you were worthy of an extraordinary goodbye.