The vet said that they tested Babe with distemper virus and confirmed the results. Babe had distemper. It's caused by a virus. Viruses have no medicine. My babe is defenseless against it. My babe is a sitting duck. He said if the medication they give him doesn't work we have to be prepared for the worst. If he's suffering we might even have to put him to sleep.

Put him to sleep. Put him to sleep. 

I couldn't think. I felt waves crashing, overflowing my eyes. I burst into tears.

We were going to visit him. Searched on the internet right before we left. Puppies usually don't live.

The time between I found out til 3.30, my heart stopped every time the phone rang.

At 3.30 my mom got a call from the vet. She told me she had bad news. I didn't stop tearing for the whole half an hour in the car. I used half a box of tissues.

At the hospital I wiped away my tears and climbed the four storeys up to the isolation rooms. Isolation rooms. Babe, alone. The four storeys were the most tiring four storeys in my entire life. I never imagined a more exhausting four storeys. I wondered how many people felt the same way. I wondered how many dogs die everyday in this same hospital, their owners climbing the same four storeys. I teared. I couldn't. I didn't want to imagine.

When I reached the vet led us to the room where he was. She carried a black plastic bag and lay it on the floor. I knelt down and felt a lump rising in my throat. I was going to cry, I knew I was going to cry some shit. And she barely lifted the bag and all I thought was... that's my baby. That's my baby in there. And I saw his lifeless face, I saw his closed eyes and his still chest, his scarred body and I saw the familiar face of my baby, devoured by sickness and stupid viruses and death, and I thought of the so many times where the same nose had breathed air into my butt, so many times where the same eyes had pleaded to mine for treats and meals. Of the so many time those puppy teeth had bit me and the so many times that tongue had licked my toes. I thought of the night where only he saw me cry by the balcony, where we were alone and we explored my bedroom. I thought of the night I found the first symptom and how I'd tried to pluck them out, thinking they were ticks. I thought of the time we brought him to shave his hair because the doctor said it was fungus. I thought of that picture right I took right before I left for Singapore in December, him looking at me, his eyes with that gleam of plea for his treats. Maybe he was hurting by then. I'd never know.

On many occasions I had to search the whole house for my school shoes in the morning because he brought them everywhere. On the times where we did sit ups together, him trying to bite the pillow I was on. Times where he'd follow me right into the bathroom only to be chased out by a running giant, where he'd look at me with that inquisitive face and that cock of his head as if to ask what the hell am I doing. Times where we'd hike around the corridor, him tailing my every move, trying to bite my toes. In the mornings as I got ready for school he'd start whining in his cage, or barked at me, and I remember I thought it was annoying. But now all I wished was for him to get up and bark at me and tell me that this was all my nightmare that I'd imagined, that he wasn't going to die. But he didn't.

He's not ready to die.

It hurts to think that when he was struggling to breathe his last I wasn't there breathing with him and spurring him on, giving him willpower to keep right on living. It hurts to think that when he closed his eyes I wasn't the last person he saw, but a vet in a white coat probably wearing a mask whom he barely knew. It hurts to think of him in that room, alone, and breathing his very last breath and not have me with him, not have me tell him I love him, not have me hold him in my arms. It hurts to think that he was waiting there for me to come and take him home. It hurts to think that he was hurting. That he thought I didn't want him anymore. It hurts that he was waiting for me all these while.

But I never came.

It's painful to imagine that all these while those looks of plea he'd given me were asking me to realise that he was hurting. It's painful to imagine that he'd looked at me hoping that I would in some way look under and see the virus take him cell by cell.

And I didn't. It's painful to realise that no, I didn't see all that hurt. It's painful that I'd nodded at him, or given him the same cock of the face to the side and looked at him, just like that. It pains me that I'd brushed him away with a treat, a toy, a towel, or asked him to run after me and play catch. It pains that while he was hurting I'd caused him more hurt.

It hurts to think that I wasn't there when he needed me most.

So I cried. I cried the shit out of me and I didn't hold any back in. I wanted to hold my babe, and wail and shout and scream at him to get up and bite my toes, I wanted to shake him to life and have him tail me everywhere. I wanted him to grow back his hair, I wanted him to do all the things I told him not to do. But he couldn't. And it was all my fault.

It was my fault that I didn't bring him for the vaccine. It was my fault that I wasn't there with him when he used all of him to stay awake and wait for me. It was my fault that I didn't visit him yesterday because I was looking for a camera. It's all my fault, but it's so easy in the past tense. If only I could just turn the clock for one more day and just be there for him. I would be contented. But it's all so easy, so easy in the past tense.

Babe's the best thing that ever happened to my life. He gave me joy, he made me free, made me find a part of me I never knew existed. He opened up my eyes to the world and made me see the true meaning of bond, of saying no words but understanding each other. He made me realise that dogs are not 'just animals', that once you have one in your arms you have one in your heart. And you never wanna let them go cause when they do they tear away a part of you and it hurts like hell, so bad you feel like dying.

So now I think of him in that plastic bag, still scared and afraid and alone, waiting to be cremated and buried. I think of him still looking for me, his soul watching my face as I cried for him, for my mistakes. Maybe he was crying too. I'd never know.

I love you babe. You'll always be my baby.