Daily (w)rite

Oh, there she is! Must go up to her! Is that milk I smell? She does look like she has something in her hand…yes, yes, slurp, it is milk! Come closer, come closer! Oh I am so hungry and this thing at my neck pulls so! I know I stink, girl, but just come closer so I can have a go at that bowl. Come nearer, nearer! Ok, now!

It is silly how useless these legs are, I can drag along so fine with these on the front, but how about having a pair to shove me up at the back too, like my brothers and sisters? Never mind, never mind, I will get to it in time, can I have some of that milk, please, now??

Ok…sigh..that was good! Now why does she look so down? Say something! I like it when you say things, I don’t understand them one bit, but I like the sound. Reminds me of my mum. I like how you touch my head too, I know you avoid the back because I have been sitting around in my own shit, but you see I can’t pull up my behind at all! I try, I try, see how I try! Oh look! I managed a bit! Oh no! I fell down again! Don’t look so low, I will manage, I will!

So you are going to do that washing thing? Why so early today? Usually you do it when I get my food next. I like that food: all that yellow and white fluffy stuff, very smelly, but nice! Ok, now, I hate this cold, why do you have to put me in water? There is not even enough sun yet! I like the way you pick me up tho, by the scruff of my neck, like mum used to.

Not like that monster boy who picked me up, making that awful sound looking really happy, just before he dropped me. I used to be able to move all my four legs before then. But when I fell, I was hurt, oh so hurt. I cried, I yelped, because it hurt. I was scared already because he had taken me away from my mum and my siblings, but now it hurt!

There, you got me all clean, I like the smell of that stuff you put on me. Your hand smells nice too, I like telling you how nice you are by licking your hand, because I don’t know how else to say it. It is like when you pat my head, and say Feenix, Feenix! That’s me right? I know when you say Feenix, you are calling me! You are saying something about me right now!

I have to call you something too, but I know you don’t understand anything when I talk to you, you just stroke me softer. So I lick your hand. You make a funny, happy sound then! But why aren’t you making that sound today? And why is your face all wet? Pick me up, pick me up, so I can lick you clean! I don’t stink right now, so you can pick me up!

Now that I am full, lets play! I cant move much I know, but you can bring your hand near and I can try biting at it, like I always do! Such fun! And such a nice day it is too! I’d like to go a bit further, but this thing at my neck you tie me with! Ah, can’t you just loosen it a little bit? Let’s go, come on, please!

Hey you are picking me up, what fun! There, there, I know you don’t look too good today. That’s alright. I will lick you better. Hey your face doesn’t taste alright, all salty, what is this wet thing all over it? It looks like water, but ugh, it tastes bad! Never mind, I will dry it up for you, there girl! How about some more milk then, eh? I can do with some more! I like it when there is nothing on my neck, so wonderful, so free!

So you are putting me into the basket? We are going to meet that man eh? I don’t like it when he pokes me though, he tries to make me stand, and I hate it when you look so low when I fall. I want to stand, I do! I will too, you’ll see!

Ok we are there. I don’t like that table. I feel scared, don’t put me down, don’t!

Ok, nasty man go away. Give me back to her!

Wait, girl, why are you going away? Don’t leave me and go, please, please, please! I am calling to you, are you deaf? You always come when I cry, don’t leave me with the nasty man!

Oh, he hurt me, he put that sharp thing in me! The nasty man hurt me! Come back!

I feel sleepy now, I feel so sleepy…come back, come back!

When it comes to poetry, I admit I am a little cynical. I write poems, but they are not really things I’d rather put up on a blog.

Rick Mobbs, who is an artist by profession, but a painter and poet at heart has asked me more than once to share with him the fiction I have been writing. Uh, I thought, why not poetry? Maybe go the whole hog and make a complete fool of myself?

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Writing about making chicken soup was not on the top of my list of things to do today, but then I thought, well, why the heck not?

It was like this: I heard some really, really, really bad news. My uncle lost his battle with cancer.

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This was a post I had done ages ago. A cherished few of you, who used to visit my old blog, might recognize it. I am posting it today (with an update) because I cannot forget dear, dear Sam for more reasons than I care to count.

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Writing has been the least of my priorities these past few weeks, so it is with an almost unfamiliar fervor that I pick up my blog again this week.

As some of you know, my family went through a recent bereavement.

I come back to my life as it was in many ways a changed person.

I knew it all along, but this recent experience brought home to me with all the force of a sudden punch in the gut how fragile human life really is, and how transient.

One day you are here, smiling, talking, breathing in the crisp spring air and the next your lifeless body is carried away in a car, a van or a truck, never to come back again to those who love you.

It is a sobering thought, one which needs to be remembered….
…… while we bicker about trivial things (things which really won’t matter once we are gone),
…… when we stress the negatives in our lives over the positives (life is too short to focus on negatives alone),
……when we put off all the things we want or really need to do (as if we had all the time in the world to do them in)
….and the list goes on.

I suppose a life on which the shadow of death hangs all the time wouldn’t be much of a life, so it would be mad to think of the day we die ALL the time.

But it couldn’t hurt to remember from time to time the irrefutable fact that I am a perishable creature, especially when my ego comes in the way of my happiness, or when I am too lazy to do something or too driven to take a break, or too shy to speak of my love.

Keeping in mind the fact that I am here for a limited time could only help add that little bit of much-needed perspective.

It would help me live with an added feeling, a tangible poignancy: not to just exist from day to day to day, but to live each day to its fullest, beautifully and with meaning.

Facts:

Phoenix is a month-old puppy.

Phoenix cannot walk.

Phoenix was not born that way.

Dad went and picked him up one cold night, after a neighbor left him near our home. Phoenix’s mum was apparently a stray, and the neighbor’s son had picked up the puppy.

The son broke Phoenix’s back, and so the father left the puppy near our home hoping “its mother would come and pick it up”.

My dad could not stand the puppy’s crying at night and picked it up….only to discover the broken back in the morning. The vet said the puppy had permanent spinal nerve injury, would never walk and it would be best to put it out of its misery. My dad, trying hard to be a realist, agreed.

The puppy was euthanised, and the vet gave it a dose that would kill a Rottweiler, because it kept waking up.

My dad left the bag hanging outside, and went to find a spade to give the poor mite a decent burial.

But when he came back, the bag was moving……and a groggy pup was peeping out! So the name Phoenix was born.(The vet nearly fainted when he saw Phoenix at his clinic the next day.)

Phoenix is full of beans and tries to drag himself everywhere on his forelegs. My dad has found a new occupation in his retired life: how to keep a handicapped puppy clean—because Phoenix pees and poos and rolls about in the mess with gay abandon, and does not act handicapped at all.

He has to be restrained with a soft cloth, because the vet says dragging himself around would give him a dangerously sore butt. Not that Phoenix cares.

My dad who had never done much to keep his own progeny clean, is found hovering over Phoenix all the time. He puts the pup in warm water to try and make it swim, massages its lifeless hind legs four times a day with medicines, takes it for a nerve injection everyday(the vet treats Phoenix for free and refuses to take money after being asked a dozen times) and so on.

Dad is extremely proud of Phoenix because he licks up the medicine without complaint, and has a wolf’s appetite for milk-soaked biscuits. (When I think of sheer will to live, I can’t think of anyone stronger than our tiny Phoenix:).

Phoenix has now started wagging his tail in greeting, and moving his hind legs very, very little, which has Dad in absolute throes of happiness.

Love has created many miracles.

Though the vet is not hopeful, I have a feeling Phoenix would walk—he has already come too far not to.