I can deal with many types of grieves. But I can’t deal with dead pets.
I still remember eons ago, when a friend’s pet died and he called, bawling into the phone in cantonese…..”sei jor, sei jor”. I thought his sweet old granny had passed on (bless her, she’s still alive!), felt a knot in my heart and tried my best to console him. Then he finally uttered the dog’s name.
I don’t know how to explain my feeling then but I think “cheated” would have been quite close to it. If “wtf” were in vogue then I would have told him exactly that. But of course I didn’t.
The knot in my heart undid itself and it was all by the book from then on.
1. Listen.
2. Reinforce the fact that the dog is now in a better place.
3. Offer company.
4. Repeat from step 1.
Like clockwork, man.
Obviously, I don’t hold special attachment to animals. I may gush at the cutest puppy but that’s about it, I’m quite happy to be without one after 2 hours. When my bf brought home abandoned kittens and nursed them back to health, I felt more inconvenienced than mushy. I couldn’t wait for them to be all grown up and leave. The day finally came and the first thing I did after that to was sprinkle cabai all over the balcony.
Cruel? Maybe. Lets put it this way, I just can’t treat them like human beings. Any compassion derived from me for animals is merely a basic knowledge that they are important to complete an ecological unit.
So yeah. I’m out of the closet. Are you a non-animal lover pretending to be one under peer pressure?
p/s: Happiness is stumbling upon a forgotten piece of TimTam in the fridge.
Happiness in a packet.
++ /Update ++
I have a dog named Charlie now and I would take a bullet for him. Now you can boo me :P