a letter with a piece of my heart

Dear Sera,

Today is the day we part ways with each other. When my time comes, it is my dearest wish that we will meet again in heaven.

Tears keeps falling again and again, even though I keep thinking that with all the crying I've done for the past few nights, my tears should have run dry by now. I know that I'm not alone, because everyone else is crying along with me ever since we agreed upon it together. Ever since that night I returned from Phuket and Dee informed me that we have to make a decision.

My heart hurts, there's a gaping hole in it, you've taken a piece of us with you, for being so faithfully beside us for the past 11 years.

And yet, we know that it is the right thing to do, as a family, it's heartbreaking to watch you suffer, barely gasping to breathe at time, growing thinner and thinner by the day, having to endure weekly liquid extractions and all that needle jabbing for the past year. Because we love you so much, we have decided to let you go.

We are already missing you.

From the day you were given to us as a little puppy only several months old, so far away from your parents and brothers. A spoilt little thing who insists on not eating dry dog food and not ever sleeping in the cage nor within the confine of our bathroom where we put you there only to find that you've escape from it the next morning.

Mummy dearest will miss all the morning breakfasts you snack from her as she's having all her daily nuts and fruits and bread. All the time you waited so patiently for her as she uses the bathroom late at night. Always the first one you're able to weddle your puppy eyes to make her cave in and give you whatever she happens to be eating at the moment.

Daddy dearest will miss your little games that you love to play together. I bet he'll even miss going to the pet shops to buy all your favourite treats and biscuits and cans of dog food. The first one to stock up on your food supply whenever it runs low. And possibly the person who gets up from bed most of the time to open the sliding door for you in the middle of the night when you decide on banging it, probably because the rest of us are heavy sleepers and will easily sleep through all that noise. The second person you can snack from for your daily fruits supply.

My dear brother will miss all the little hugs and pets he loves giving you, even if it's right after his showers. And I know you've got him trained as well as, because I've been hearing you paw on his door right every night right after you walk out from my room every night, to make your next nightly excursions from my room to his.

I will miss our little daily pats and ear scratches, a habit that built up from my schooling days where I would return home, flopped on the floor, pat it twice and wait for that little bundle of fur to get up and walk over to greet me. It's something that only you and I share because no one else does that but me. Seems like it's been forever that you habitually drop by my room first every night when everything downstairs is closed for the night, that everyone makes it a point to open the door for you and invite you into my room without even asking me. Probably because I tend to sleep later than the parents and is almost always the one with the air conditioner still switched on. Once you hear the 'plaaak' of the switch going off, you'd crawl out from wherever you've been napping and sleepily make your way into bedroom number two, my brother's.

We will miss your little forlorn look when you realised that you've been locked outside at night and all that banging on the sliding door to remind us that you're still outside. All that suspicious sniffing on whatever food we give you to snack, that little guard dog charade you start doing only when we're having dinner. Never learning that shouting from upstairs is not from some random person outside the house. Your daily barking at the poor postman. That warm fur you get after sunbathing in the sun from the outside. Or that wet doggone look you get after getting bathed. The overly excited atmosphere whenever we prepare to go to the vet. That you really hate the festive seasons and the fireworks it brings and the rain with all its thunderings.

Calling you with our various spur-of-the-moment nicknames, mostly from mum and I. Talking to you one on one whenever we want company or just someone to listen to.

I hope we've given you all the love you ever wanted, and freedom to wander all over the house sans the furnitures and beds.

We love you so much and we know that you love us too.

Love, your family

(Sera - August 2000 to 17th December 2011)
Ours, always and forever.