To: Meow meow, the goodest girl

Hi Meow,

It's been 82 days since you left. I still miss you very much.

Meow, I honestly don't know what or how to feel, and I've dreaded writing this post to you because I don't want to get over you. I worry that once I know I have dedicated a post like this to you - just as I have done for Cookie and Creamy - I will stop thinking about you.. I'll stop remembering that I need to do something for you... and I don't want to forget about you.

Meow.. I know you had to go... I guess even before your surgery I knew your time was near. You were sleeping more, and eating so little, and your lump was so big :( That's why I told you that I love you more, and feel my heart stop when I didn't see your chest rise and fall. Meow.. till this day I don't know if I should have come back earlier from Vietnam to put you out of your misery. You were in hospital and surviving on nothing but fluids. I remember how distraught I was when I came back and found you skinny and emancipated. You smelt of vomit and was literally skin and bones. And you looked so frail and tired. I know... that you could have gone sooner. But perhaps, in some way you hung on because you wanted to see me again.. just as I wanted to have you around for a lot longer. Meow... I guess this is why as much as I knew on the inside the surgery might not help you, I wanted to hang onto some hope that we could buy more time for each other.

I know you had to go, but I never wanted you to leave

Meow meow... my favouritest and goodest girl. I still feel so sad when I watch the TV and see silly looking animals wandering around. And my heart aches when I see them helpless or feeling scared. I imagine that might have been what your last hours in earth might have been... From the time we last saw each other in the hospital, where you peeked your head out to look for me, and I hurried off so you didn't see me... to the last time we saw each other as you straddled between life and death on the recovery table...

Meow, I wished I had done more for you. I wished I went back to hug you and tell you I love you one last time before I left you to face the surgery alone. I wished I let you feel my presence more... and I wish I let you know that I know... that you've tried your best and it's okay if you can't hold on. Meow, I wished I didn't keep pushing you to hold on... I wished I told you I love you more times that you can count, and I wish I did more for you and less for me.

Meow meow.. I miss you a lot, and I love you so much more than my heart can bear.

I wish you never had to go... I wished you were here to keep walking through life with me...

But Meow, now that you're gone, I just wish you will are happy, and you are well. That you are immensely loved and well taken care of. That you are unafraid, and not hiding under the cupboards, and you take many walks in the streets of heaven.

Meow.. I really hope we'll meet again, and that you'll forgive me and still have me as your companion. I've done a really poor job of being on, but I'll always want to be your pal.


- Evangeline

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Creamy

Dearest Creamy,

It has been about a week since you've passed on. Yet, I feel like I haven't been able to properly grief over your death yet. After you were gone, it's just back to business for me - partly because there's so much to do, but mostly because I felt so tired of crying and being sad.

Creamy. Everyone kept telling me to cheer up because you are in a better place right now; you are not sick, or suffering anymore, but I think that they are wrong. I know that you love life, and that you would have liked to live if you could. Even the day before you left, you kept pushing yourself to get back up even though you could not do so anymore. I watched you try, and fail, and I was that cruel to not let you seek treatment anymore. It's really not because I didn't want to save you boy, but because I knew we could not. We could not get you to stomach the medicines - your only helpline, and the signs were all there. Whether we liked it or not, you were going to go. That's why even though people told me that you are in a better place right now, I know you would have been happier being right here, with us.

Creamy, you've never been out on your own before. On the rare few occasions when we went out, you would never venture far or leave us out of your sight. You would trail closely behind us or even run if you needed. Now that you are out there in limbo, alone, I can't stop thinking about how scared you must be feeling.

Creamy, I let Cookie go when I was ready. But I was never really to let you go even though I knew you were going to.

:(

2016

Hi Cookie,

It's almost the last hour of 2016 now, and I can't stop thinking about how much you were struggling in my room same time last year. You were so sick, and on the verge of dying. Yet I could did not do much for you, besides making you feel worse.

Cookie, I'm sorry, and I miss you.

2016 has been an awfully challenging year, my friend. Not only did I lose you, it was also full of closures in many aspects of my life. I graduated, found a job, and started to draw my own salary. I became an aunt, and had my character challenged on so many occasions. Cookie, I wished you were here to witness it all, but you weren't...

All I can wish for now, is for 2017 to be less painful, and for Creamy to live happily and healthily in your stead.

:(

The day I am forced to grow up

Dear Cookie,

I'm starting work as an adult tomorrow. It's not really a full time job yet, but I hope I can work hard enough to impress my supervisors to convert me into a full time staff. Everybody seems to be over the moon for me: mich, jo, daddy, mummy, Shan an. I think it's probably because I'm about to leave the nest and become financially independent.

While I am definitely relieved that I have a place to go to work at as opposed to worry about my future as I had been for the past 1 month, I cannot help but feel a sense of dread and worry. Ever since I was a little girl, I remembered that while all my friends could not wait to grow up and become and adult, I never wanted to grow up. I did not want to go to university, get a job, get married and move out of my parents' house. I wanted to be their little girl forever. I wished you could be with me forever too, cookie. But time did not allow me to.. I was swept off to college, internship, grad trip, and now, I am waiting to start work tomorrow. Cookie, everybody keeps giving me the grin and telling me how happy and excited they are for me: they want to buy me presents, give me a treat, etc. but I really wish they wouldn't. So that as always, I would just be swept into this role without thinking about how scared and worried I truly am.

Cookie, remember how there were days and even months when I would be lazing around at home with you? Gone are the days when I will be able to that. Gone are the days when I can just lie in bed, on my stomach and stare at the monitor from dawn till dusk. Gone are the days when I can do nothing but just watching drama after drama, video after video. When all I had to worry about was what to do when I was done, and what I should eat. Now, I gotta wake up at 7:30 in the morning and get ready to suck up to somebody else. I hope my colleagues are nice, and I don't have to lick anybody's boots. I think my biggest worry really is just, being around people. I haven't be around people enough to remember how to make them like me, or not to care about how they don't. Sigh. I wished you'd understand.

Hi Cookie

Hi Cookie,

Today is 3 Jan, 2 and a half days since you passed away.

I've been crying a lot these couple of days out of sadness, guilt, fear, worry. Sadness, because you had left us and I can no longer find your presence at home; guilt because I felt that I was not a good enough caretaker for you; fear out of forgetting you; and worry for how you are doing in your afterlife.

Cookie, I find that I've been using the lift less these days, because you would often run in excitedly to commute upstairs - sometimes, even if you just alighted. I avoid going to mummy's room sometimes because I'm afraid to stare at where you used to sleep, and where I would always go to find you. And when I open the fridge, I sometimes still imagine you hanging around, waiting to see what goodies we're get out of there. Before you were gone, I stopped feeding you stuff from the fridge, but instead just let you smell whatever I take out.

Cookie, I often still feel sad and heartbroken that you're gone, but I think I'll get through it, because I have to... I'm still really fearful that I might sometimes have too much fun I forget you. But Shan An told me yesterday that I won't... Because you had been my best friend of 15 years. It's not that simple to cast away and forget a part of your life.

So, I've come to the consensus that you'll always be in my heart. Even when the pain of you leaving subsides, you'll always live in my heart.

This morning I've been thinking... how great would it be if heaven had a room specially prepared for you and all the other nice doggies who had made it there. There will be beds reserved for all of you, and a speaker to connect you to us. Ever so often, you would run to the speaker to listen to what I had to tell you... That I love you, I miss you, and I worry for you.

Cookie, you've always been kind of shy and timid... But you've got to be happy and brave this time around and make lots of friends in heaven okay? Jesus has promised me that he has taken you into his arms, and he'll love you, and care for you. I've also sent you an angel to protect you.. I hope that is enough. So have a crazy crazy time in heaven till we meet again okay?

Love you lots cookie

I love you very very very much..

Thank you for licking my ears so much when you first came.. I just found out that that was just your way of telling us that you love us too.

Cookie

Dear Cookie,

You passed away this morning at around 11.40am, after battling all sorts of pains and illnesses throughout most of your life. Because death brought you relief, and released you from all these suffering you endured, I don't have any regrets. I'm relieved that you are at a better place.

Cookie, thank you for accompanying me through all my childhood. From I was primary 3, all the way till I am about to graduate, and move on to the next stage of my life. Thank you for being so kind, gentle, and most of all, good. You had your quirks, and stubbornness of sorts. You liked to hide in blankets, or in small dark spaces - even when it was difficult to get to... and you used to tremble when it rained. You didn't like to be leashed, and won't relent even if you were dragged across the floor. You loved milk, and you were crazy about cheese - I remember how you used to steal the wrapper from the bin to lick it when we weren't looking.

Cookie, you were wonderful. Simply wonderful. I'm sorry I could not, and did not care for you better. I'm sorry I was inconsistent in my actions, in taking you to the doctor, in feeding you medication, and in taking care of your teeth. I know it troubled you for many many years. I'm sorry. And now I can only hope that you'll feel better.

Now that you're gone, the space beside mummy's bed will always be empty, and I won't hear your footsteps in the evening at 4. Even so, you've filled my heart with the love you've given to me. Thank you for making sure that I had no regrets. Thank you for giving me time to come to terms, and to bid you goodbye. Thank you, for coming into the new year. Thank you, thank you.

Cookie, I'll miss you. I will... Even though I know I will move on, but I will look back, and think about how I've had you as a furry companion for 15 years. I'll think back on the countless times I hugged you to cry because of whatever heartache I was going through. I'll think back and smile at the times you were randomly happy and excited and it was really cute.

Thank you.

Dear Cookie,

Dear Cookie...

You are now lying at the hospital at Clementi road with a needle in your arm. When I saw you, you looked dishevelled and your fur was wet and clumpy with your drool.. I often complained that you smelt but really, it was all my fault. My fault that your mouth is filled with plague and sores, and that you can't rest easy at night.

We've had a hell of a scare this morning when you just collapsed in my arm and didn't want to move when we took you to the vet. She said your blood test was less than satisfactory - appalling in fact - and that you were in pretty bad shape. I knew too you were in pretty bad shape... but I thought you would be fine again after we admitted you. But that wasn't the case... when I saw you just hours again, your head was low, and you were determined to get out... Not to go home, no. More like, looking for a place to hide, and seem solace so that you could die with your pain alone. And when that did not seem to work, you simply dropped yourself again and decided to ignore our existence. I'm not sure if that was out of anger, frustration, or you did not even know we had gone to visit you. Regardless, it broke my heart. To see you in so much pain, you too seemed to think you were gonna die.

The doctor said you might pass away on your own at night, when no one is looking.. and everyone seems to be pushing me to consider euthanising you. I'm not sure what I should do, Cookie.. I really don't know what to do. Are you ready to go? Do you want to go? Will you send me a sign? I'll consent if it is your will... Otherwise, I really don't think I'm prepared to let you go... I'm scared... I'm scared to face your listless body and not see you wake up again.

Cookie, you've had a really hard life because of me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I really am sorry. But I feel like all of these is too late now... What will I do when I see you again