Prayer on Behalf of a Beloved Family Member

Glorious Hekate - Nocturnal Mistress with loyal hounds! 

Mother, I've put this off as long as I can. Well...no. I could put it off just a little longer. Another day. But it doesn't feel safe. It feels like I've avoided it like a child avoiding something that the adults say, "Just let them go. They'll do it when they're ready. This is hard for them." Except there isn't really an option for doing it when I'm ready. I'll never be ready. But I know it's time.

We have to let go of a beloved member of our family. He's old. For a member of his species and breed, he's ancient. And if we don't let go now, he'll be suffering. The appointment has been made for him to have medical assistance for this, but we all keep expecting that he might go on his own before the appointment comes. If he does, Mother, I pray that it will be painless and peaceful for him. That he will slip into a comfortable sleep that he doesn't wake up from again in this world.

I'm scared. I'm scared of what will become of the rest of us. I'm scared for my sister, the human he has been most bonded with for almost his entire life. I'm scared for my spouse. I'm scared for myself. I'm scared about how this place is supposed to be "home" without his paws walking on the floors, without his bark in the halls.

He is part of The Farm for me, and this means I have to let go of another piece of that version of Home.

I have to say goodbye to the beagle friend I waited decades to meet.

Mother, it isn't enough to say that he's a good dog. I don't have the words to say just what he is. I can tell You he deserves his own eternal paradise. Whatever that would be for him, he should have it.

I pray that his friends and family who have gone to the Otherworld before him will be there to meet him. Dogs, cat, goat. 

This isn't the first time I've done this, and I still feel each time like I don't know how to do this. Grief creates scars. Does it heal? Yes. But it never goes away.

Here we are, at a crossroads, and me with my devotion to both You and Hermes. I feel responsibility to ask You to make sure the gates open easily for such a beloved being, and I ask You to welcome him. Guide him. He deserves only the best. That's what he always gave us.