An Ode to a Friend

I haven’t had the time to grieve properly since you left, though for some macabre way, I am glad you left the way you did — at peace, as the sun rose, lying on your side, the way you’d always do when you’re completely at rest. I guess that’s why I used this photo of you in the first place.

At an equally macabre level, a part of me’s grateful that you got sick; that your body realised it could not handle the size of your heart. Because it was in those last days that you brought us together: ate would send me your photos, her updates my alarms — did you wake up? did you eat your food? did you lick the wall like the odd fellow that you are? Mum and dad would laugh at how fierce you were, as if your 5 pound body was heavier than us combined. Kuya would bring you back and forth to the vet, speaking in hushed tones, never letting me know when things were serious, because he’d know I’d cry.

It’s been 2 days, Chopper. Two days since kuya buried you in the ground near your favourite playing spot. Two days since I told ate I couldn’t go home claiming that I was busy, that I had to be in school early the next day, and I was, and I had to, but that night I took out a bottle of wine and raised a glass to you. And another. And another. Until the bottle was gone, and my tears mixed with the wine, and I clung to my pillow while I cried, my heart undulating because of the alcohol. All the while I wondered, is this what it’s like to have your heart?

You were with us for 8 years, and in those 8 years you were delightfully funny, annoying, fierce, gruff.

You were all these and more, but more importantly, you were so, so goddamn good to us, Chopper. So much so that when sibling roll calls were made, your name would come before mine and I never found myself caring. So much so that the house’s WiFi was named after you, and I squealed in delight at the knowledge…

Fuck.

So much so that right now, as I type this down, two waterfalls have sprung from either of my eyes, and I’m hating myself, and blaming myself, and berating myself for not playing with you one last time before you left.

Because now you’re gone.

And I keep telling myself this: I keep telling myself that people and animals who die — they transform into other things. That the warmth they exude when they were alive is the warmth that wraps us when we’re cold and alone; that their glee remains, their stories stay. Remember in Eastwood that one time, when Rico, in the way only Philosophy majors can, approached you and said, “Accept your mortality?”

You nipped at his finger.

He swore.

But we all laughed. And despite my blurred line of vision right now, I too laugh.

Because I’ll always remember.

I love you, Chopper. Love your amazing ability to look picture-perfect all the damn time, your inability to stop going in circles when you see me with a piece of banana, your stubbornness to learn how to go up or down the stairs (effectively being the only dog at home who’s always left at the first floor landing), your tendencies to follow commands only when it suits you…

I’ll miss you, bud. But I’m sure doggy heaven, or wherever dogs go when they die, will treat you much, much better, will love you much, much dearly, more than we have, or ever will.

Thank you for you, and I’ll see you again.