When The Eyes Went Dead - II

            

Continued from When The Eyes Went Dead - I

            We waited a little longer to see if the medicine we gave him would work its magic. It did not! He still couldn’t eat or move. He could only let out weak cries every few minutes that just broke my heart. We called up the vet and decided to take him to the clinic. While my mother was getting everything ready to take Tie to the clinic, I sat with him.

            When I felt a little blue or a little alone I knew I always had Tie. I would sit beside him and he would patiently listen to everything I said as if he understood me. Maybe he did, even if he didn’t he always managed to make me feel so much better somehow.

            I felt so helpless sitting beside him, knowing I could do nothing to stop his pain.

           The vet said Tie was suffering from an odd stomach infection, and so he wasn’t able to eat anything. This only made him weaker and gave him a high fever. When my mother asked him how long would it be before Tie would be alright, the vet looked at both of us with an odd expression and said “his condition is deteriorating, I can not say much right now.”

          I and my mother didn’t say it, but we both knew what he meant. He put a needle in Tie’s vein and gave him saline drips, to help him regain a little energy. All I could do was stand there, looking at Tie helplessly lying on the vet’s examination table. After a few minutes I couldn’t even look at Tie without tears filling up my eyes and blurring my vision.

           When we returned home Tie seemed a lot better. The vet’s injections had worked, so we decided to keep him in his usual spot, right outside the door, cozily tucked between the wall and the shoe rack. We laid him comfortably down in his favourite black blanket and went inside to have dinner.

           After about an hour I heard Tie scratch at the door, the sound that I had gotten so used to. I knew he wanted to get back inside the house. When I opened the door I saw he stood there as if he was at a loss of words for what was happening. He had tilted his right leg, the leg where he had received the saline drips, in a manner that I had never seen before. I looked closer and then I saw it. The saline had come out through the puncture the needle had created.

         I was perplexed; I didn’t know what to do. My mother immediately called the vet and he said “for most animals the body doesn’t accept foreign elements such as Saline drips. Hence, it expels it out.” That was it! His job was done. He did nothing else to help my Tie, he did nothing else to help us.

        After this Tie become much weaker and could hardly even give out cries of pain. We brought him inside and my mother lad him right next to her bed. We sat with him for a long long time. When you know a loved one is in so much suffering and needs you, time ceases to exist. Hours went by, sitting next to Tie. I had never prayed so hard, ever in my life.

         I wasn’t ready for him to go away yet. I had to finish school, join college, get a degree and join my dream job. I always imagined he would be at the door, waiting for me when I came back from work. Sitting next to him, all memories came back to me in a flash.