my friend pepper wrote this email to me...
i remember seeing blackie like erm 10 years ago...
apparently she still got a video footage of me with blackie... she gona dub it and pas it to me in the week ahead...
this is my attribute to Blackie... this dog gones to heaven...
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""""My little friend of eleven years left us last night. Unlike the rest of my family, I wasn’t there with her when she took her last breath, so I can only imagine how it must have been like and wonder what she was thinking with her last wail of doggie goodbye to the ones she love, as she slip away in their loving arms.
News of her passing did not sink in immediately, or maybe I was only trying to be strong for my mother who was already bawling uncontrollably by then. She seemed to have aged so over the past decade, and we sometimes forget that little animals do too.
In all our love for Blackie, we had brought her lifeless body to the vet with the lingering hope that science can bring it back to life and it would be all okay once more. It was simply difficult to accept life’s fragility at times, especially when it comes without a warning sign.
Looking at her quiet and still body, I wonder where the sweet energy of my little friend had gone to. Can she still hear us say our goodbyes? Do all dogs really go to heaven?
There she lay so peacefully, as if only fallen asleep, but for a last time in our arms. The bits of white hair around her muzzle, ears and paws being the only obvious evidence of her growth with us this decade.
We had taken her into our care and watched her flourish from a lustrously black- furred puppy with blue puzzled eyes, to a matured little friend with such wisdom, and golden heart of giving. She has been a strong emotional pillar for my family and the other dogs that came to live with us after her.
Our first dog, the one who opened our eyes and hearts to how dogs really love and the one who grew up with my brother and I during our adolescence years. Years when we were faced with the most distractions and could not care as much as we wanted to, especially for animals who are “always around” when we return home.
Then was a time when death and loss seemed so far away – it didn’t matter.
And in this vein, I wish I had done more for her then, spend more time with her, for my little friend had grown with me during the period when I have changed the most while her heart hasn’t.
It’s funny how, in moments of grief, you become strong and weak again all at the same instance. I try to be my most positive self, affirming the belief that Earth and the physical body is just a temporary place for us all, that goodbye is never forever. Yet on the other hand, images and flashbacks of our earlier years together keep popping up.
Her passing has indeed raked up more than just memories. It actually brings to light how all of us have grown without realization. How time truly flies.
When I was filling out a form at the hospital, I recalled her first vaccine visit to the vet with me. That was ten years ago when I had to fill out a similar form, needing to write-spell her name this way. I also hesitated at the same point, wondering whether to spell Blackie with a "I" or a "Y".
Nothing can describe this loss more. It’s like having a chapter of your life close when you're not done with it. I had held onto the belief that she will live till ripe old fifteen, when I am thirty-one. Hence, this coming of four years short could not have prepared me worse. And despite my attempts to keep up a brave front for my distraught mother, I eventually submitted my emotions to the overbearing sadness of losing a long-time friend – a constant companion in my life since I was that clueless teenager at sixteen.
There were many questions of why such a happy dog with no known sickness could have passed on so quickly over a span of two days. But sometimes, you just have to believe that it is all in God's plans that good dogs don’t suffer.
A friend who haven’t even met Blackie was touched by her story and gave us the best consoling words:
“Blackie came into our world for a reason, to touch our lives with her special ways. Now that she is gone, please carry on. Coz Blackie’s found a brighter place. You broke her chain and walked her away from loneliness and pain. ‘There’s nothing you haven’t done for me’. Blackie says.”
This holds so much truth and yet it is still heartbreaking to acknowledge that there’s nothing we haven’t done for her because the fact is that we can always do better for our little ones.
I stood frozen at the holding room watching as my mother hug little Blackie for the final time and she cried the words she could hardly muster, "Bye bye Blackie..., Blackie Bye bye!"
My heart broke in that instant, I put my arms around her and whispered that Blackie has already said her goodbye, so we should leave her body to rest now.
It is heart wrenching to let go of a little friend who has faithfully been there for you all these years. In my mother’s words, “A decade with her didn’t seem that long, it only feels like yesterday. Why did she just suddenly leave us?”.
I do not know the answer to this. Perhaps it is really like they say,
“The only fault a dog has is a life too short”.
To my little Blackie,
You are very loved and will be deeply missed by all of us.
Rest in peace over the rainbow bridge where lots of doggie friends can play with you….
* Friday 24th is the day we cremate little Blackie and bring her ashes home with us.
Pepper*"""
