A Sad End to the Day

We tend to book our euthanasias at the end of the day, so that the clinic is quieter and we can take our time. The downside to that is it often ends the day on a sad note, which can linger with you on your drive home.
In many cases it's a bittersweet sadness for me. When the patient is suffering, I'm glad I was able to send them off to sleep for the last time in a painless way, usually surrounded by the people that loved them.
The other day I had such a case that I found particularly difficult. The client was an elderly woman who was accompanied by her daughter. The patient was an equally elderly and very ill budgie. After repeatedly answering the same question from the frail, older woman, I could tell she had issues with her short term memory. Her daughter told me later that her mom had Alzheimer's. I took the little bird away, euthanized it, wrapped it in a soft cloth, and brought it back into the exam room so that the owner could have some closure. Except this owner couldn't have closure, because even for the short while I'd left the room, she'd wondered where her bird had gone. Back in the room, the woman, crying softly, kept touching the bird, hoping to stir it back to life. It was heartbreaking and I wondered, once she was home, how many times she's go looking for her little feathered friend.