Dodo’s right eye has been blind for very long. Maybe since she was around 6 or 7 years old – I can’t remember exactly when.
In her seniorhood days, we note that her left side was also starting to get cloudy. We brought her to the vet and were given an eye drop that was supposed to delay the cataract. The vet advised that there was no way the cataract could be cured by external medication. The one way to get rid of it was for her to undergo surgery and even then, it was no guarantee that the cataract would never return. We decided against the surgery as we did not want to subject her to the risks of surgery at such a high age.
We were worried that she would go completely blind and hence affect her quality of life. I was concerned about her knocking into chairs and other furnishings around the house should she become totally blind one day and hurting herself.
I never knew for sure how much of her vision was left in the last years of her life. And yet, she was not bothered by it all. Loss of her eyesight, whether substantially or totally, never stopped her from living the life she wanted and doing the things she was used to do and wanted to do.
Yes, she could run in the wrong direction sometimes when we called her name outside the house (actually I am not sure if this is due to her loss of hearing or loss of sight or both). Yes, she could sometimes knock into things when in unfamiliar places. And yet, she never really stopped – she still ran, her ears still flapped, her tail still wagged. She still barked, still hopped around when happy, still enjoyed her birthdays – she still was the active, greedy little dog I had known throughout the years.
Maybe we all have a lesson to learn from this little white dog. No matter what old age or fate may bring, perhaps it doesn’t really matter that much. We just cannot let it stop us from living the life we want to live.
Remembering the brave one,
Jie-jie
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