Reason. Ration. These are vile words when you’ve lost a loved one. Words that, like some linguistic drug, offer you an escape from the pain you’re feeling by masking it with purpose and order.

But, and continuing with the metaphor, they’re circular. Rationalizing the death leads no where. There’s no reason. It’s just happened and now she’s gone – leaving us with an unanswerable question: why?

I can ask the pet shop why they sold us food that killed our dog. I can ask the distributor why they didn’t take better precautions in the food’s storage, allowing it to develop the poison that killed our dog. I can ask the manufacturer why they don’t hold more responsibility over their distribution network, and why they’ve not even commented on the fact that their product killed my dog.

But none of their answers will mean anything. No apologies or compensation will put substance back in that void that has been left in our home today.

Nothing they do will be able to remove the scar that has been left on me for having to watch my dog die, having to feel with my own hands her heart slow and then stop. She didn’t go to sleep, she didn’t slip away, she didn’t benefit from any of the euphemisms that I now envy. She died.

I can’t put to words the sadness I feel.