All Endings Have a Beginning
By Karen Langston

My name is Bart. I want to tell you my story.
As humans have a hard time dealing with the death of a loved
one, so do we in the animal world. I had a wonderful home with
my two masters. One day one of my masters became very ill and
didn’t seem to get any better. It wasn’t long until he died. My other master was very sad and cried. I was very sad also. We both missed our friend.
After several months, my remaining master started to show signs of the same illness. I began to worry. I loved my master. What was I going to do? We used to play a lot; I love the water, so often we would go to the beach and take long walks. But now, all we could do was sit together. Sometimes my master would let me crawl up beside him on the bed and he would stroke my head. This was awkward for I am a very large dog, but neither of us minded.
My master’s body became thinner with each passing day. He had purple marks all over. I know some humans say I can only see things in black and white, but I know they were purple. My master would come home from going to the store and tell me how it felt to have other humans staring at him because of his purple sores. He said it was because he was sick with something called AIDS. I didn’t know what they meant, but it didn’t make any difference to me. I loved my master. I loved having his hand, even though covered with those purple sores, caress my ears and rub my muzzle.
One day there were several humans around my master’s bed. As he lay there a woman friend asked him, "Have you made arrangements for Bart?" I perked up my ears as I heard my name. I saw tears in my master’s eyes as he answered, "I thought I had more time." KEEP READING