When I came home from school, I noticed something was different at home; something was not right. There was an unusual silence blanketing the house that grew thicker as I went inside. Tie, my pet dog wasn’t waiting for me at the door, as he used to every single day. I yelled out “Ma, where are you?”, hoping for an explanation from my mother.
“Come to the backyard.” She yelled in a controlled tone. It was obvious to me that she was trying desperately to hide the anxiety in her voice (living with a person for 14 years teaches you so much about the person that the slightest hint gives them away.)
I walked slowly towards her voice, thinking the longer I took to go there the more time there would be for everything to be back to normal. If only everything you thought would be true. I saw Tie lying on the ground, wrapped in his favourite blanket, wearing an exhausted look on his face. Mother explained how he had gotten sick in morning after I went to school, and how he had only gotten worse as the day had gone by. She had tried all the usual ways to make him feel better, but nothing had worked this time.
I went closer to him and sat right next to Tie. He had lost all his energy so he couldn’t get up, but he still managed to wag his tail a little and looked at me. I could see that he hadn’t eaten all day.
As I sat next to him, praying everything would be back to normal and Tie would be running around the house causing trouble like he always did, I remembered the first day we welcomed Tie into our home. It was only 9 years ago.
I saw my mother walking in through the door carrying something in her hands. She had covered whatever that it was with a veil. It was my birthday and I was expecting a new bag for school, but the present I got was something much better.
As my mother slowly lifted up the veil, I saw a black wet nose sniffing me! As she pulled the veil up even more I saw that it was a small little puppy, as wide eyed and surprised as I was. Everything around was new to him and everything about him was new to me. My mother had finally gotten me a pet dog that I was begging her for, and how glad I was.
I sat next to Tie, smiling at him, remembering how scared he was the first day he came to our home and how happy I was to have him. How was I to know then that I would become so close to Tie that even the slightest discomfort caused to him would cause me such great pain.
