筲箕

I felt especially troubled tonight (?), maybe because of the current news(?) which could also create ripples arousing other bad emotions/memories (but hasn't it been over a year since all this shit started, so I guess most of us were not numbed by the news yet? .... (on a tangent, it's not infrequent, that people ask whether you'd get used to the discomfort or inconvenience of chronic illness, which I can only say no, at least to me) 

Went out to exercise in the dark roads, and saw this old dog, I used to wonder whether I'd see Rosie grow old (and imagine all the hard things I might have to deal with, e.g. blindness, incontinence etc.) but she didn't grow old, we didn't know her exact age, because she was rescued from the breeder, it was a cold Christmas, I took her home to foster after one or two weeks of consideration, seeing she was always overlooked in the centre, even though she had this limping leg.... (well, maybe she was "overlooked" by the many potential adopter visiting during Christmas, precisely because she's limping...) 

Actually I thought of her the whole day, somebody made me a little tag of Rosie for me recently, which reminded me that a few newer friends of mine didn't realise 小草 (grassie) and Rosie are two different dogs, I didn't explain, because it doesn't really matter, I love that tag still, and the fact that this friend made it for me. 

Rosie's last months were filled with big and small epilepsies, always in the middle the night, not great, she's a smiley girl, even though she's been through years of human neglect, so it felt unfair that she had to suffer from these very long seizures/epilepsies .... During her second one, I screamed out loud in the middle of the night, I didn't even scream out loud myself when I saw scary doctors... or wounded wormy animals etc.... 

It was sad, and hard, but the love was worth it. 

I wrote and illustrated a picturebook on the topic of bereavement a few years ago, and still get lots of letters and thank you notes from readers from time to time, I remember going to book talks, and hearing all these people sharing how they did not dealt with their grief from decades ago, and would break down when triggered years after... 

I wonder if dealing with grief is a lifetime lesson. 

My love with Rosie was alot simpler, as compared to a lot of other grieves in life, some still haunts me deeply. As I said in the beginning, maybe I am just feeling troubled today... surely most things in life, we can never disentangle... 

So, I was thinking, we should focus on the present and the future, but the future also feels like an unknown in today Hong Kong, when most people are thinking whether we should "escape." 

Today is the 2nd day of this literary map. 

Came home to little grassie's warm welcome, Yvonne asked me recently, how did trembly, extremely scared Grassie knew to trust me since day one, honestly I have no idea. 

Thinking of all the animals I have encountered, warms me from the inside though, because all of them, regardless of their breed, age, and personality, basically are good.