'TIS the season to be jolly…’
How awfully sad this song is on a Christmas day when the last desired visitor should come and take someone one loves for a gift.
It may sound trivial but it hits right to the core.
There is something in 2016 that wasn’t right for me.
Though overall, I could not say that this is yet to be the most interesting year ever in my life.
u2018Simba’ was a beautiful dog, and at some point I thought he will live for many years, because he outlived many of his siblings who went ahead of him for no reason at all.
He was a part of the family, the ideal ‘watchdog’ in the house because he had a good physique, well-built body and deep and nearly frightening bark just like that of a Doberman.
He’s a “bisdak” (Bisayangdaku), which means an ordinary mongrel who didn’t look like one, and for this reason, I trusted my house to Simba for some time each time I had to go earn a living because I was confident that Simba would look after my abode and keep unwanted visitors from prying in.
He would just sit there with his leash around his neck or without it, not even wanting to go out and explore for mating partners in the neighbourhood.
He was a handsome pet, healthy-looking and his big built makes people wary of him.
But one day, after going out for a spell, he came home with a bad limp, and I thought, he might have met some trouble with other dog bullies out there.
But from there on, Simba no longer have the appetite for food, and his body started to stoop, his eyes were sad and drooping, and he lost so much body weight within just a week.
I thought perhaps he had some internal injuries and could have been badly hurt.
I would have wanted to bring him to the Vet but I thought of the last time I brought an injured puppy to the Vet for check-up and I was billed a fortune.
I discovered that it was much more costly to have a Veterinarian check-up than a human being. And so I just hoped Simba would be able to recover whatever it was he was having. Christmas Eve, he said goodbye. What a way to die. But he seemed to have just slept in peace right on our doorstep facing us.
How many times does one have to stare death on the face before one loses the last vestige of dread in one self? It doesn’t even seem appropriate to speak of that most unwanted visitor on this day of merriment.
And yet it is much easier to write about these things, mundane as it is, than to put one’s thoughts on paper about peace, justice and other relevant issues, at this time of day and age…
Still, life is beautiful and must not be clouded even by that unwanted visitor no one wants to have… Still wishing a blessed Christmas for all of us…
