i can't remember how many times i tried to start writing this. everytime i started, i just fell to pieces. i can't remember now how many times. i guess this is what grief is all about.
i can't believe that you're gone. when i read coy's text that they had made the decision to put you to sleep, the first thing that came into mind was how i felt riding in the cab with you back home the day i bought you at the chatuchak market nine years ago. you were just a puppy - a large one though who perfectly fit the length of my lap. it amazed me that strangers who just met could feel so at home with one another. i remember thinking 'we've found each other.' the first night in the flat, after you sniffed every single corner and cranny (and pooped and peed in some) you were happy to snuggle down in bed with me when the lights were out. you pushed your cold wet nose into my neck and from thereon you did that every night. eventually i read somewhere that puppies did that with their mothers.
it is crazy that i am tortured by all the memories i have of you. i was initially lamenting that all i have of you is a photo on my phone of you and me sitting on the couch but in the light of your leaving, i find it is more than enough. my brain is reeling with all the adventures we had from thailand to manila.
i remember the first time you discovered the swimming pool at the condo. you were barely 3 months old and you saw your reflection in the swimming pool. you started barking at it furiously and lunged at your reflection only to plunge into the pool. in two seconds, you discovered the joys of the water and swimming and from thereon, you looked forward to visiting the pool. no one ever from the condo discovered that i let you swim in the pool til the day i brought you home to manila. you never lost your love of swimming - and i was very happy when coy would bring you when he was camping so you could swim in the lake.
i remember your quickly learning that the best seat in the car was the middle of the passenger seat right smack in front of the aircon vents. everyone wondered at my dog who was used to riding in elevators (she was a penthouse condo dog for a while) and was used to the driver opening the car door for her so she could sit in the best seat in the car.
everyone who saw you fell in love with you. the vets and their staff from bangkok to manila would rave about you. people who hadn't even seen you spoke about you affectionately. even mama's fruit vendor would set aside apples and oranges for you because she learned mama would buy fruit for you without telling anyone who it was for. when she eventually revealed she was buying apples because you liked them, mama's fruit vendor made it her weekly mission to set aside apples for you. it was a bit bizaare that the fruit vendor was giving mama apples for you instead of selling them to her customers. but that was typical of the magic of sasha.
little children who just met you, who were half your size were happy to lie down and roll about on the floor with you when they came to the house. they would always leave in floods of tears, they would have to be pried away from you when it was time for them to leave and they would demand their parents either take you with them or buy them their own sasha. little did they know there would and could only ever be one.
you were the kindest, most loving, most affectionate, smartest and gentlest golden retriever in the world - and you were mine. i knew that if something like you could love me with the kind of unconditional love you gave me, i was alright.
when i brought you to manila - i knew it was for your own good. i couldn't take care of you and spend as much time with you because i was busy playing big time advertising career woman who was living on planes. it killed me everytime i would leave - you had come to hate the luggage trolley. you turned into this psychotic wild rampaging angry puppy who bit my heels everytime the trolley came out because you knew i was going away. i would drown in guilt at having bought you, only to be subject to the doggie hotel for days at a time because i would be on business travel. the height of my guilt saw me hiring 2 nannies for you - a day nanny (the one you loved and who spoiled you rotten but couldn't stay 24-7) and a night nanny so you wouldn't have to be at the doggie hotel. both your nannies would tell me how you would jump into bed and push your nose into my pillow to sleep when i was away.
but everytime i came back, your world would be right again and so would mine. you were so happy to see me. we would resume living our condo life like my going away never happened until i would have to travel again and the whole trolley wheeling sound and ankle biting episode would be replayed. until your grown up life, you were traumatized by the sight and sound of any luggage trolley. it was a reminder of all those times i had to leave you. coming home to you - those were the times when i felt i was really at home.
little do people know how much i hated my time in thailand. i hated how i had become a slave to my job. i hated flying like a maniac and the endless meetings and teleconferences. i hated how i tried to fill the emptiness of my life with untold numbers of clothes, bags and shoes. you were the one shining light of that period of my life. all those nights i spent crying at the emptiness and materialism surrounding me, you were there. always happy to see me, always loving me and seeing that underneath the overworked monster lay this woman who was really nothing more than scared shitless of failure and god knows a million other things.
when i left for london, i was firmly of the mind that i was going to find a way to get you there with me eventually. the times i would spend in the park - i had these imaginary scenarios we would someday be walking together in hyde park and shopping in selfridges together because they allowed dogs in the shop.
i read every single ruling in the UK on the net, talked to every single animal importation official who cared to listen, wrote the RSPCA, talked to embassy officials and offered to pay them if they could pretend to be your owner and bring you into the country for me - ANYTHING and EVERYTHING so i could get you here and they all said no. eventually the one path that was open involved a two year process and a 6-22 month quarantine period. i knew that you would never survive a month in quarantine much less a 6-22 month wait. and still, i refused to accept i could never get you into the UK.
i'm not used to the word no, and you know that. i thought, i just needed a bit more time and i would eventually find a way.
i think my failure was that i always thought i had time. last monday when i left to return to london, i was unsettled. like there was a puzzle that was unsolved - how you had turned around extraordinarily from death's door when everyone including the vet with over 20 years experience thought you wouldn't make it. i was too happy to ignore the warning in my head - i kept chanting, no she's alright, stop being paranoid, she's better now. go back to london.
the morning i left, i deliberately kept the house dark and quiet because i didn't want you to see me go. i knew, how the luggage trolley made you feel and i didn't want to traumatize you again just when you were, as we all thought then, just healing.
so i thought - better to leave softly. just like the song 'softly, i will leave you softly, long before you miss me. or my heart would break, if you should wake and see me go'.
it turns out, you thought about it before i did.
the vet said, you were a really good girl. that when i came home, you put on a good show for me. that you fought hard because i was there. that you were determined to show me you were getting better because i was there. well you certainly fooled me. i left for london with images of you wagging your tail and your teddy bear face with the dark soulful eyes staring at me with happiness and love like always.
the minute i left, the show was over. your poor little body just gave up and before anyone in the family could even take a breath, you were worse than when i came home. i don't want to imagine in my head how mama described you - your suffering and the pain that took you. it breaks my heart that all this time, you were masking your suffering for me. for us. even during your last days, you were trying to shield us from your pain until it became too much for you to bear.
i don't think i could have survived seeing you in the state mama said you were when you were going. i'm a big coward sasha - i want to remember you happy and joyful. i remember when we had to put skipper to sleep - i was the only one left in the room with the vet and when they administered the shots, i remember how first, the pain left his eyes. then slowly the light left his eyes and eventually turning blank. and then i knew he was gone. at that moment i remembered you and i knew my sanity would never survive if i were to see you in that state. i want to remember your eyes shining with light and i am thankful for your gift of that being my last memory of you.
i don't care if everyone crucifies me with ridicule over how much i loved you and how much you meant to me. i don't care that people laugh behind my back and snicker at how ridiculously sentimental i am over you.
only those who have ever been gifted with that kind of unconditional love, and been given the opportunity to love and belong to someone unconditionally would understand. those situations in life are rare - they are far and few in between. many people spend their lives searching for and never finding it - we found it in each other.
thank you sasha for coming into my life. i loved you - with every fiber of my being, my heart and my soul. i am beside myself with sadness that i will never see you again nor hug you. that you won't be there to meet me with your wagging tail when i come home.
beyond the gift of love, you made me realize how much i could love. that i had the courage to belong to someone, that i was brave enough to pick someone to love without needing to hear that i was loved in return.
rest in peace now under the tree with skipper.
sasha - you were mine, and i was yours. forever.
Sasha Nov 2001- February 2010
Softly, I will leave you softly.
For my heart would break if you should wake and see me go.
So I leave you softly. Long before you miss me.
Long before your arms can beg me stay for one more hour, for one more day.
Softly, long before you kiss me.
After all the years, I can't bear the tears, to fall, so softly...as I leave you there.
As I leave you there. As I leave you there.
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