Last Night

When I came home from work yesterday, Buddy wasn't at the door to meet me. He also didn't come when I called his name. I came through the living room and found him laying down in the kitchen. He got up and went outside to use the bathroom and came back in like normal. I took Charlie and put him in his crate, Buddy came in and laid down on his blankets beside my bed and we all went to sleep to take a much needed nap.
I woke up four hours later and couldn't find Buddy anywhere. I started to worry that I had left him outside and didn't remember. I checked the livingroom, kitchen, bedroom, and then checked them all again with no sign of him. That's when I went back and found him lying on the bathroom floor. He was just laying there, breathing pretty shallowly, and was fairly limp as I pet him. Over the next few minutes he got up and began to wander around the house. He was running into things and stopping to lean against anything near him and looking for some place to hide.
I called my vet's answering machine to tell them that it was time and I would need to bring him in in the morning. As I watched Buddy I began to worry he wouldn't make it until morning. I called the vet again and wrote down the number to the emergency clinic. My mom came to get us and took us there. Buddy let me pick him up and carry him which he hasn't done since he was a puppy. They took us into a back room and I laid Buddy down on a blanket covered table where he stayed with his head on my arm. One of the ladies came in with a vet and they talked to us and then gave Buddy a sedative shot to make him fall asleep. I stood there with my arms around him and my head on his shoulder as he slowly started breathing easier and closed his eyes. We left around 11:50 after kisses, tears, pets, and whispered goodbyes so that the vet could give him the euthanasia shot.
Today would have been his 12th birthday. Part of me wanted to stay with him until midnight so that he would be 12, but another part of me knew that he was sleeping and no longer really with me, and that God had already answered my prayer to let him live until his birthday because he would be born again in Heaven on that day.
I stayed home from work today. There was no way I could go in with how I'm randomly crying. Even though there are five other pets here, three of which are four legged mobile ones, the house feels empty without my Buddy. I will love and miss him forever.