I Love You, Goodbye

Being in-love is the greatest feeling, the greatest happiness a human being could ever feel. But being in-love doesn’t necessarily mean that a person can fall in-love with only a person, too. There are many kinds of love – friendly love, motherly love, brotherly love, etc., etc.….. -  but I do not know in what category does being in-love with a pet falls.

As a country child, I grew up with different kinds of pet  - chickens, pigs, dogs, cow, carabao, and cats, all kinds of domestic animals. I couldn’t remember how many each of them we had. But I was never fond of any of them. We ate and sell some, dogs and cats died and was replaced, but none I could remember that I ever been very fond of anyone of them.

But the greatest thing happened in my life during my college years, year 2007 by the month of May. I found my joy, my happiness and my first love. Marian – the neighbours cat – bore some kittens in the stairs of our apartment. And slowly she transferred those kittens inside our room without notice. When the large male cats start going inside our apartment just then that we notice those kittens hidden under our bed.

I took care of two kittens, naming them “Precious and Dudzki”. Precious is a girl with black and white color combination, while Dudzki is a white and orange male. I love them both, but with the knowledge that a girl cat would bore many more kittens I told Precious that if she ever get pregnant, she have to leave our apartment and go back to the owner of her mother. Surprisingly though, she did what she was told. I never returned Precious to the neighbour that owns Marian, but when Precious got pregnant she never returned to our apartment, she stayed there with Marian. Although, she sometimes visits us, she never stayed for long.

Dudzki, however, stayed with us for a long time. He was with us every time we change from apartment to apartment. I would never left him where we last live. I was so fond with him that I have let him sleep in our bed wherein he can use our pillows and blankets. He was so beautiful and so sweet. Sometimes I think he doesn’t meow, but talk. Sometimes I believe that he understands whatever I tell him. He knows my voice. A soft, single “psst” to him, he would come to me. Even if he was far, when he heard me calling, he would reply instantly with a loud “meow” as if he was saying “ coming!!” and then he would come to me.

Whatever tiredness, sadness, and stress from work I could feel, Dudzki erased them all just by coming close to me and brushing his big, beautiful body to my legs. Just by looking at me and ‘meowing’ right next to me.

But, just like everything in the world those happy moments has to end. The life a creature has an ending. On March 10, 2012, I look for Dudzki for feeding. He never showed up. There is no worry there, he as done it a few times -never coming home for a day – a cat being a cat. But when he didn’t show up the next day, I started to worry. I worry because I know that in our neighbourhood, there were people who didn’t have anything worthwhile to do but hunt and kill the cats. They sometimes throw the cats into the river.

March 12, 2012 early morning, I am already on verge of tears. This is the third day that Dudzki was not showing up. I am convinced that he is already dead. But still I want to see his body. So I asked my husband to find him. Just then, our  neighbour who happened to be my husbands’ aunt, came and told us to check on the next door, our godfathers’ house. She said that this neighbour found a large, white and orange cat. I am already in tears. There is no doubt, that is my baby.

The saddest part of this event is that we are a minute late. When my husband came into the neighbours house there is no more Dudzki. They already throw his body to the river because it is already smelling bad.

How I wish I found and saw his body for the last time. And be able to give him a decent burial for a cat. 

I have cried for days and days, remembering him. It's been a month now, I could still remember him, his soft footsteps, his loud meow, his hair, his teeth, the way he slowly opens our bedroom door, the way he jump with a loud thud...

His last pic few days before he dies...

What else I can't remember? Nothing to say, but, Baby... I love you... Goodbye..

:(((