As if fate has (to some extent) been cruel enough by taking my labrador away from me last month, she has surprised us once again by now taking away my dachshund. From 4 dogs to 2 dogs, my pre-Beijing trip has left me grieving for two beloved pets. It was quite unexpected. Sudden. She (my dog Yumi) was doing well when I saw her and played with her last Saturday, but Sunday struck us with an unfortunate occurrence as she started defecating blood. Without our driver at home and my dad out of the country, my mom had to make an emergency call to her brother to help us bring our dog to the vet.
I thought everything was going fine, and Monday, I was at a friend’s for our discussion and review session supposedly for Beijing. Things took a turn for the worse that late afternoon, right as I was about to go home, when I received a text announcing that our dog had died. She had had leptospirosis (though looking at wikipedia, she didn’t seem to have any of the symptoms that would make the sickness noticeable) and her liver and kidney was failing, till she had passed away that Monday.
No amount of grief or tears can relieve the sadness that has overwhelmed us. Physically, we’re doing well and moving on, but it’s hard to forget someone when they are suddenly taken away from you. No warning whatsoever, no time to say good-bye, no moment to ready yourself for the pain that is to come. Just like that, death takes someone you love away, and nothing can ever bring them back. Those moments that you play together, talk together, spend together, it all becomes a memory that time will slowly fade into nothing but pieces.
For now, we’re moving along, trying to think of other things to distract us. With this whole Beijing thing going on, it’s somewhat easy to distract myself. But those few moments that I have to myself, to think about things that I have to say good-bye to, those are the moments that I cannot seem to fill in. It’s not only us who are feeling the loss. My other dachshund, Yugi, Yumi’s brother who was born from the same litter and her “mate” as you could call it, has been whimpering as if trying to call her to him. He misses her, though we are not sure if he knows she has already passed. We didn’t even let him smell her body as we buried her in our garden. To say goodbye, is such a difficult thing.