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after school, my dad tells me the vet called up wanting to meet up wif natasha's owners (a.k.a. us). so my sis & mum heads over to UPM all the way in sepang while my dad sends me off to add maths tuiton. i unexpectingly spend the next 1 & a half hour or so absorbing oh-so-wonderful add maths knowledge with my half-dead brain cells. after tuiton, i got into the car. & d first thing my dad said was "bad news." i remember thinking like, "hmm..what's up?".
i wished i didn't have to hear his reply. maybe if he didn't tell me, it wouldn't be real.
"they have to put down Natasha."
u know how time freezes in movies? yeap. it was like that. i felt my stomach make a plunge. my mind went BLANK.
when i opened my mouth, i had to convince myself it was me talking. it felt..so surreal. like an out-of-body experience. "isn't there another way?" i asked. my cheeks were wet. owh, i think i was crying.
she was sick since early of november last year. it was heart aching to watch. she would limp, fall, whine, try to get back up, & whine some more. we went to 3 different clinics. spent a few thousand on treatments, diagnosis & boarding. nothing was working. we were referred to the animal hospital(the only one in msia apparently. jeez... msia sucks) which was UPM. when we got there, we were told she had a slipped disc in her spinal cord. the only option was surgery or she could never walk again. we went all out eventhough the operation was gonna burn a hole in our pockets. but we loved her. that was all that matter.
i still remember that the operation went smoothly 2weeks prior to CNY. & i remember visiting her on the thursday the week of CNY. & if i had known that was the last time i was ever going to see her. i would have stayed there & bunked in with her. i would have been with her till the very end.
forward back before the flashback. my dad replied, "the surgery's not helping. her condition's worsening. she won't be able to move at all in a couple of months. the doctor said the kindest thing to do is to put her to sleep."
i cried the entire 10 minute ride home. i was letting the information sink in. well... more like it sorta crashed in. when i got home, i continued crying. when i ate dinner, i was still flowing non-stop. then, i had to suck the tears back in & go to bm tuiton. i messaged the first person who came into mind when i got home. even then, i was still crying.
i probably...wait, i mean..i sure as hell scared the shyt outa hui ting who was sitting next to me. my expression was
probably like this:
& yea. i just sat next to her. burying myself in the work mr.quek was giving us. & i actually didn't talk for the first time, not at all. i was still thinking about her. my mum & sis were bringing her body home that night. by the time tuiton ended, i would have to go home & face reality. i didn't know whether i could do it. while still msging my emotional support i got one msg saying "u can do it..give her ur final farewell. i don't think she would leave this world without a proper goodbye from u." i instantly broke down in tuiton. well, quietly that is. i was trying to hide my face with my hair but somehow or other hui ting saw. & man..i think she was FREAKED.
but i did what my emotional support told me to. i went home & saw her. my mum & sis placed her in our lil prayer room. she looked the same, like she was sleeping. just without the rise & fall of her chest, without her usual snore, without any life within her... i prayed for her. with the tears streaming down from my face, i prayed for her. for her to be in a better place, for her suffering to end.
my cousin studying in uk, jun hao, msged me after finding out. i was so touched. the tears came pouring out in gallons after i read his msg. "Dear Angeline. i'm really sorry to hear about ur loss. what i can say is that, she wont need to suffer the pain anymore. all the 7 yrs, u all have given her the best of everything. everybody has to leave us 1 day. try not to be too sad."
my tear ducts were kinda haywire by then. i was like a bursting faucet. i couldn't stop. every1 in my house was asleep by 11pm. but i couldn't. i wouldn't. i was so afraid that, if i fell asleep & woke up, i wouldn't wake up from the nightmare, coz it wasn't a nightmare. it was reality. thank gawd for my emotional support that night. we were on the phone till 3am. u know who u are. a thank u wudnt be suffiecient enough for how much u helped me through that night. but still.. thank u for staying with me...
after the phone call. i went back into the prayer room. & i sat next to her. she looked so serene, so peaceful. i tried not to cry, at least i tried not to make any sounds while i cried. who knows what time i stayed up till. but i did eventually go to sleep.
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i missed school that day. we woke up at 9am to bury her. that was the hardest thing i ever had to do in my nearly 17yrs of existence. my dad dug a hole in front of our hse at the lil garden we had. my mum was praying. my sis & i lowered her into it. she was cold but her body wasn't hard. i couldn't remember i moment when we weren't crying at this lil burial ceremony we were having. den my dad filled up the hole. & that was that.
my sis told my bro hu was working in singapore. his reply was "i feel so empty". that pretty much was how we all felt. empty.
my emotional support checked in on me after getting back from school. my best fren, eugene, who i had told the nite before, came over with my homework from school that day. guess he told some of my other close frens & helped me explain to d oh-so-freaked-out hui ting. when i checked my homework, the tear ducts got another jolt. xiau fong & kelly had left short msgs of support in the small sheet of paper. jeez.. will the crying ever stop?
after that
i sked the shyt out of alot of people. i went to school still looking like how i was when hui ting saw me during bm tuiton. a lot of ppl kept asking whether i was ok, whether i was sick. i felt like wearing a sign that said " stop asking whether i'm ok. coz i'm not". the poor victims of my depression were peobably my close frens. sweet ol' eugene. known him since std1. we may be best frens but i know he doesn't know what to do when i sink into depression mood. so he was always feeling awkward. my koncos in class (a.k.a. kelly, jia min, lichin, michelle, xiau fong) were treating me lyk a box labelled "fragile. handle with care". i think they mistook me for a time bomb that might explode if they made any sudden movements. lol. but i have to agree. i was pretty darn scary. always spacing out, never talking. oh.. i sked d shyt out of jin onn too. coz one time, i started crying in class. usually, i would walk off alone to the toilet to cry when my emotions that i kept inside started to overwhelm me. but sometimes it got out of control. that's saying something. coz i NEVER cry in front of people if i can help it. i hated having people pitying me, feeling sorry for me.
i couldn't eat either. everytime i looked at food, or even thought about it, i felt like throwing up. which i did quite often especially in d morning. somedays, i only went on water & threw up water just as well. 1 week later, i had alredi lost 2kg. man, i have found my diet plan if i ever planned to lose weight again.
sometimes, breathing hurt too. it was like having a puncture in my lungs. every breath stung.
i used to agree with my cousin, yi jing, probably the closest person to me in my entire lifespan, that breaking up was probably the worst type of pain. we were dead wrong.
take the pain of breaking up, multiply it by infinity, & u're nowhere near the pain of losing a loved one. thats what i told people who didn't get it.
some of u may raise an eyebrow & laugh. it's just a dog u may think.
no. it's not just a dog. she was, to me, family. 7yrs, she gave my family boundless joy, unconditional love & undivided loyalty. i miss not having a furry brown magnet following me around as i pace through the now empty house; i miss not having her go into crazy-maddening-exhilarating-excitement mood when i get back from school; i miss not having her clutch to me with her life during thunderstorms; i miss her when she licks my face whenever i cry (or when i fake crying); i miss everything about her.
i used to be so ultimately sure that i was going into veterinary right after high school. i LOVED animals. ever since i could remember. to the extreme that when i was just about to turn 3, i told my mum i wanted to become a vegetarian because i didn't want to hurt the poor animals. i still am a vegetarian till this day, fyi. X3
i'm not so sure now. i don't think i can ever watch an animal, a life, end right in front of my eyes. or having to put down an animal in order to end it's pain & suffering. i don't think i have the emotional strength to do that.
but every few days. i go to the spot where we buried her. even when her life ended, she brought new life.
somedays are just better then some; somedays are just worse off. i'm never going to be "ok". because i'm never going to forget her. i will never let myself forget her. some1 said to me "maybe God wanted her more". i don't know about that, but i know she's in a better place. she'll alway stay in my heart. my love for her will be undying, just like how she loved us.
"We're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?" -The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
