Saturday, November 05, 2005
However far away, I will always love you...
The hardest part in loving somebody would always have to be letting go. You let go when he or she is no longer happy. You let go when he or she has to leave. You let go when he or she hurts too much and that that somebody will be better off somewhere or with someone else.
I woke up this morning with puffy eyes I could barely open. That was what I got for practically crying the whole night. No, it wasn't about some guy. It was about Margot, the one who saved me from last year's depression. I wish I had known earlier that losing her would bring even greater grief.
I thought our visit yesterday would be happy. In fact, when she was let out of the fence, I was the first she approached. We still couldn't touch her, so she rubbed her nose against my jeans. I was so glad she could still recognize me. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn't. She needed to recover some more.
I remember my dad always telling me how she has been recovering--her wounds have dried up and are close to healing, she now joins the other dogs when they run, blah, blah--and somehow I expected to see her home again soon. But I had expected too much. Margot would never come back. It looks like she would be staying at my dad's friend's house for the rest of her life.
"She looks happy there naman na," my dad kept telling me.
You see, I take pride in Margot's strength, maybe not in body but definitely in character. Although she can run a mean six kilometers in a day, her bodily defenses are weaker than that of normal dogs. Her galis started as early as a month after she came here and it has never disappeared. Last July when it got worse, she was brought to stay at her vet's place. For a month she stayed there until she got better. She was taken home again but again she got worse. And this time was time, it was the worst.
Everyday, she would rub her body against any surface she was on. Her wounds wept fresh blood, she started losing hair, and her face began to swell until her distinctly dobe face turned more into that of a pitbull. There even came a point when she could no longer open her eyes. Of course, I was lucky enough not to witness that because I was in Manila. My parents even caught Margot's depression. My dad kept researching on ways how to cure her but it seemed like the best way to save her from suffering was to put her to sleep. And nobody wanted that. She herself believed she would die soon and when she was to be taken away, she jumped from the truck and went back as if saying she would want to die at home.
It just so happened that my dad had a friend who was an ultimate dog lover. He volunteered to take care of Margot until she was well. He also got one of the best vets just for her. He treats Margot very well since he knows she has always been well-loved. Because of this, my dad decided to leave Margot there also considering that Margot's body really could not survive here at home. We can still visit her, of course. Tito August knows how much everybody in the fam loves Margot, even my mom who never really liked animals.
Still, I find it hard to let go. I know she'll be better off at Tito August's place but I just find all this change so sudden. And that makes it more painful. Nobody really told me how bad Margot's condition was. Sure, they didn't want that to add to my stress. My mom also confessed last night that she told the driver not to describe how Margot looked like. I guess that's why nobody really talked about Margot. All they told me was that she was going to be okay.
What's even painful is that I wasn't there for her. It was really unfair since she never left my side when I needed her. She healed me in all ways possible and she never failed to make me feel better each day. I would always look back on the days when she would lie on my lap as I sit on the porch and when I would start to cry, she would cry with me. But where was I when she needed me? I never went home the whole month of September. I wasn't there on her 1st birthday and most importantly, I wasn't there when she was terribly ill.
No matter how hard it is to accept, I do have to be happy. We all know it's for the better. We're doing this for her own good. We would all want to see her happier and most importantly, healthier.
I'm still hoping for a miracle to come, though. Who knows?
As for now, all I have is this picture to look at and our good memories to look back on whenever I badly miss my Margot.
