I lost my best-friend this morning. Since I had him last September, he became the only thing I missed while I was away from site, the only thing that showed so much excitement to see me come home, and the only thing that went through every day with me, through thick and thin. I know, I am talking about my Dog like he’s a human being. I never knew the power of an animal on a human-being but when you are alone in a country where, no matter how much you care for everyone around you, you can only deal with them in intervals at a time, where people will never, in a billion years, understand who you are, and where you end up talking to yourself after 8:00 pm because you are alone at your house; then a dog becomes the only thing (at least for me) that saves you from going crazy.
I remember when I was seven years old, my uncle brought me a dog for my birthday. I was so excited; though, I had it only for a day then they took it away from me saying it was unsanitary for a Muslim family to have a dog. I cried for an entire hour for a day I had for a day. Today, I lost a dog I had for 1 one year... I waited three hours for someone to help me bury him because from 9am to 12 people were too busy cooking. And the weirdest part was, just couple feet away from my house where I was sitting, patting a dead dog, trying to get bugs off him everyone minded their own business probably saying “look at her, why is she just sitting there like that…” I know, you can’t expect much from people who don’t even cry at their Mother’s funeral... And to answer their question, I was sitting there because I could not get myself to eat breakfast, drink my coffee and get ready for work while my dog was lying dead outside my house.
To those of you who didn’t know him or have seen him- he was a really cute dog. I had him when he was 1 months old from a girl who lived couple houses down from me. He howled pretty loudly at people he didn’t recognize but other than that, after he got used to you, he was the nicest dog around here. He was a brat though; he knew he lived a “different” kind of lifestyle, compared to the street dogs around here, so he took full advantage of it, of how much I cared for him. And honestly, I did spend way more money on food for Spike than myself. Just two days ago, I bought a bag of his favorite snacks and 500 baht worth medication for worm prevention. With all that, he taught me how to care. He really was my baby. I mean if I had a baby I would never let him/her play alone in the playground but, Spike was the closest thing I had that helped me feel that kind of care. I used to clean up his poop everyday (before he was trained), he loved sleeping next to me but I slowly had to let him sleep alone. I talked to him, played with him and just watched him play with his friend Pepsi the same way you watch a child. I remember one day I slipped on my yoga mat and fell flat on my stomach and he ran to me like he knew what just happened (it didn’t hurt much though). When I cried after my friends’ visits, he would be the only one thing left that would sit next to me and just ‘ be there’ for me. So, I think I have pretty strong grounds to say that losing him has been the hardest thing I had to go through here at my site. Like I said to a friend “the pain and anger my Supervisor caused me seems nothing compared to this” … and there really is no comparison.
It’s funny what life throws at you to make sure you keep things in perspective. Since last month, most of Central Thailand has been dealing with the worst flood in history; 200 + lives lost, 1000 + evacuated, houses destroyed, people’s income (i.e. rice fields) for months completely wiped out. Also, last week in the news, two-years-old girl was run over by a truck in China and NO ONE within those mere 13 minutes tried to save her life as people carelessly walked by while a baby was lying covered in blood. Finally, after being run over twice, a trash lady moved the baby off the road and called emergency. The baby girl died last week. I have my head in perspective; I know people around me, at this very moment, have it worse. I understand, life is never as bad as we imagine it to be because there are always people who suffer more losses, feel more pain than we ever will. But as human beings (maybe unless you’re Thai), for those mere couple minutes, days, months even the smallest pain that we feel, can be the worst thing that has ever happened to us.. …..and that should be OK.
My dear Spike, I still look under the bed for you, I still hope you come running to me, I still hope what I saw this morning was just a REALLY bad dream. I Love You and I Miss you! I really hope that you are at a better place - Keep howling and keep wagging that tail of yours- you were such a happy dog!
No comments:
Post a Comment