I painted my parents a picture before I left. They took me to an art class where I finger painted. Before I knew it, my parents ruined my painting by writing a string of numbers on it. They knew they ruined it because they sobbed when they looked at it. I noticed that the first group of letters was my birthday, but I didn't think much of it.

I've made art before with the things around me: glass, dirt, fabric from couches, but this was the first piece they’ve kept. They always used to clean up my art but they held that tiny piece of paper close to their hearts and cried some more.

The art room was dim. I stood on a table surrounded by people wearing blue. I felt out of place — I was wearing black and white and my parents were wearing a mixture of colors. Everything in this room was blue as a matter of fact. There was some gray and white, but mainly blue.

The blue people led me to a room across the hall. This new room was very bright and almost everything was white. There were big windows on one wall and a second door on the opposite wall of the windows. I could see through the tiny window of the second door into a mystery room. Even more blue people were rushing and wearing gloves and masks. I wasn’t sure what they were doing, but it looked important.

I looked back to the window wall to see another blue person close the blinds. There was a bench under the window where my parents sat holding hands talking to a blue person with a clipboard.

I was covered with a very soft blanket. My parents walked slowly towards me and cradled me in that blanket. My mom rocked me and my dad ran his hand along my back. Never in my 14 years of life had I been so comfortable. But this felt different, they were still crying. Were they not happy to hug me?

One of the blue people pinched me in the back, but I didn't want to get up and hit them. I was too tired and comfortable. I wished I could wipe my parents' tears away but I was too weak, my mom was holding me tight enough anyway. 

The overhead light kept getting brighter as my parents told each other stories about me, some stories made them giggle and laugh, and others made them cry more. I wished I could tell them that I wanted to make more stories, but I was getting the hint that this was the end now.

The overhead light got so big that I couldn't see anything anymore except for myself. I began to lift in the air, but not with my moms arms, I just began to float. I looked at myself from a different perspective. My little body wrapped up in the blanket with my paws sticking out. But as I looked closer, my paws were black, I could have sworn that they used to be pink. It was probably from finger painting. 

I hope my parents know that I had a good life.