Last night, my cousin told me out of the blue that my dog died. I felt nothing. At first. It's only when Suri came inside the house gate that I started to feel bad. There's no BongBong that tailed after him. Tito Boyet had made Suri go home after taking care of the dogs for only seven days. Said BongBong died two days before we got back. Blood was in his poop. Must have eaten something.
Suri and BongBong are two Aspins that my cousins and I bought outside the gates of UP Los Banos October of last year. When my titas, cousins and I left Manila for Iloilo for my birthday and a family reunion, we left Suri and BongBong under the care of a relative. When we were in Iloilo, Mama even told me that BongBong enjoyed my tito's place and has gotten really big. When we arrived here in Elbi, I didn't have the urge to ask about BongBong when I would usually find him when I get back here for the weekend. I don't know, but I haven't had the urge to go look for him. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he's already gone.
...
I don't write about death. Or the memories of those who passed. Didn't had a journal entry about my dad's death eight years ago. I just want to keep their thoughts to myself. I don't want to write about them. Death has been bugging me when I was in Iloilo, when AJ Perez died. Death has been a constant thought bugger. Didn't know I was about to lose a gentle creature who's so close to my heart.
I am blessed to have read this poem. It has alleviated my heavy feeling.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
by Mary Elizabeth Frye, 1932
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.
