To dear Dodo 6: Updates

Dear Mei-mei,

I realized your shrine is very dusty. I am feeling lazy today but I promise to clean it soon. But the main reason I don’t think I will be cleaning it (at least at the moment) is that I am worried I will cry again when I face your shrine for too long.

Nana and Carol have given your pram to one of their friends. I hear that the receiving little dog is very glad to have the pram and he/she is very contented when inside the pram, just like you used to be. The same little dog has also inherited your shampoo, tidbits, canned food, glucosamine tablets etc. I think Mei-mei won’t mind right? I hope he/she will also enjoy all the tidbits as much as you do!

Jie-jie will be going to Suzhou this coming Friday to watch table-tennis. This is a trip I wanted to do last year but was unable to go as my leave was not approved then. I think I might have told you about this intended-but-unsuccessful trip last August/September. Looking back now, had I taken it last year, Mei-mei would not have been able to come along. But this year, Mei-mei can come along if she wants.

All of us are planning a family trip to Shanghai sometime November this year. We will bring you along too! It’ll be much colder than Singapore but I think Mei-mei will be fine because she has curly white fur!

Minmin has not contributed anything to the blog for months. And your room-mate also! She has been saying she will do it since January I think. I have been chasing her to do it but she’s so lazy. Hmm don’t worry, I will chase her again and make sure she completes her entries before Shanghai!

Ohs, I have new nicknames for them you know? Nana is called “Lazy Chew”, Mama is called “Vainpop Chew”, your Mummy is called “Pushy Tan”, Connie is called "Weirdo Chew". Don’t really have a good one for Minmin yet but I think “Grumpy Chen” is quite appropriate.

That’s about the updates in the family that I can think of for now. Till next time, Precious.

Missing you,
Jie-jie

Gone but not gone

Dodo may no long be physically with us. But yet, she continues to stamp her mark on so many aspects of my life.

A picture of her in the orange M&M tee-shirt is the wall-paper on my Blackberry and I see her pretty, smiley face every single time I want to use my phone.

Her pictures are framed and sit in numerous places around the house – in the living room, in the various bedrooms, at her shrine etc. Every morning when I leave for work, I see a picture of her (stretching herself) on the shelf near the door. And I say goodbye Domin, as if things never changed. Every evening when I come back from work, I see her again.

My luggage pin, my office PC log-in pin, my pin for the various websites are all directly or indirectly related to her. I am reminded of her when I travel, when I am in office, when I am surfing the net, when I am at home.

She’ll always be a presence in my life, regardless of time and space.

Dodo’s jie-jie

Dodo’s smell

Dodo has a very nice special smell. I am not quite sure how to describe it but it is definitely not the usual ‘doggy’ smell emanating from dogs who have not been bathed in a while or who are suffering from some skin ailments.

It’s a smell very peculiar to her. It’s not the smell of perfume or soap. It’s like how babies generally have a special 'baby smell', which they somehow lose when they start to grow up. Thankfully, Dodo never grew out of that 'Dodo smell' and it accompanied her from her puppy days to senior days.

I loved to smell her head and her paws. I used to think I was alone in my fondness for smelling her paws. Subsequently, I came across a book whereby an author mentioned that her dad enjoyed doing that too – the smell on their dog’s paw told stories of where their dog had been and his adventures. I don’t quite go as far as that – where I am concerned, no smelling of paws on days when Dodo has been out of the house.

I wish I can smell that special 'Dodo smell' once again, but I know it’s just not going to happen.

Dodo’s jie-jie

Till death do us part

A classic wedding vow goes as follows:
"I, (Name),

Take you, (Name),

To be my (wife/husband);

To have and to hold,

From this day forward,

For better, for worse,

For richer, for poorer,

In sickness and in health,

To love and to cherish,

'Till death do us part."

Sometimes I wonder… how many couples are able to stick to what they had promised each other on the day they married? How many are able to show unwavering love and support for each other in the face of sickness and old age and the many obstacles that is such a part of life’s journey?

I think on the day she came home with me some 17 years ago, I had made the following vow, knowing or unknowingly:
"I, your jie-jie,

Take you, Benjipet Dominica,

To be my most precious little pet and my beloved family member;

To have and to hold,

From this day forward,

For better, for worse,

For richer, for poorer,

In sickness and in health,

To love and to cherish,

'Till death do us part."

I like to think I have kept to the vow.

Domin's jie-jie