Pearl, this is for you.
Yesterday was a bad day. I lost Pearl. She wasn’t sick, she didn’t have an accident; it was my fault.
Disclaimer: If you don’t love animals, please stop reading now. You may not be able to relate. If you however, DO love animals or you believe you can relate anyway, you may continue reading.
Earlier on Sunday, I found a tick on Scoff and picked it off him with my fingernails. Ideally, I would love to crush the tiny blood sucker in between my fingers. But apparently, it may still transmit diseases that way. Therefore, I got a small Ziploc bag where I put all such ticks I find to suffocate to death. I keep the bag in a red box on one of the cages. As I opened the bag to drop it to its death, the tick fell from my pinch, through the iron bars of the cage, and into the cage. I looked around but couldn’t find it. “So you think you can escape this death?” I was directing my thoughts at the tick as I went to fetch ‘Gladiator’, a very harsh pesticide I saved in case of serious infestations. I sprinkled a few drops around the tick’s ‘fall zone’ and thought that was the end. How wrong I was.
Later that night, as I was seated in the sitting room, reviewing the proposed methodology for an upcoming research project, I noticed a small puddle of pee. In between their running around, one of the dogs must have peed on the floor. It was a small, clear puddle which meant it was done by one of the younger ones — they take more water and pee more often. I punished them, I usually punish everyone for anyone’s offense, by locking them up in their cages thereby abruptly ending ‘play time’. As I commanded, “Go in!”, Scoff & Klaus entered the smaller cage while Jolene & Pearl entered the bigger one. I mopped the pee, finished up the review, played GOT Conquest for a bit and went to bed.
When I woke up, Pearl was dead, lying stiffly on her side with her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth while Jolene was shivering sickly. I was momentarily stunned. Apparently, the Gladiator I sprinkled earlier was a bit too much and the 8 plus hours between when I sprinkled it and when Jolene & Pearl went in weren’t enough for its effect to wear off. I’ll never know if they licked it or just inhaled it. I only know that I woke up to a dead Pearl. Tears welled in my eyes. But I didn’t shed one.
Pearl was (I can’t believe I’m speaking about her in past tense) amazing! She had Scoff’s playfulness and wit but Jolene’s appetite and grace. She would often start a fight, even with her parents, but then start screaming in a shrill voice for me to break it up when it became obvious she wouldn’t win. She was so adventurous that she often became a pain in the ass. She seemed to share Abel’s (my secondary school head boy)motto: “Experience everything at least once so you can form your own opinions about them”. She was always the first to upend my small trash can looking for ‘discarded treasures’. These ‘treasures’ often included, strings, pure water nylon, etc. She would then hide under the center table to devour them; apparently to minimize the risk of getting caught. It was Pearl who, one day as my friends and I were sharing a few drinks in the sitting room, finished the bottle cover full of drink they poured out while the others balked at the strong stench of vodka. She once found the door to the wardrobe compartment where I keep their dry feed slightly ajar and led the other dogs as they cleaned out what was left of the bag of feed. Afterwards, she was so full she looked like a ball. She made me ban them from climbing my bed when she peed on it twice. She seemed to do whatever she damn well pleased and frankly, now that I think about it, it was kind of liberating.
Death is so final. Here was the every gregarious Pearl lying lifelessly still. Seeing her corpse yesterday made me realize just how much I loved her. So much. But it also made me realize how quickly everything moves on. Nothing seemed to change. Scoff & Klaus sniffed her, Scoff nudged her a bit with his nose, then they moved on like nothing happened. Jolene, on her part, was too busy shivering in her own illness to care. I picked her up, put her in the box my printer had come with, put in a string and the cover of an empty vodka bottle (I’m not exactly sure why I did this) and sealed the box. I would bury her at my parents’place at Ijanikin.
I didn’t eat. I wouldn’t eat anything till I had put Pearl in the ground or it was 6pm; whichever came last. I set out for the day by almost 8:30am. Between police officers (story for another day), unresponsive clients and traffic, it turned out to be a really long day. I got to Ijanikin at about 6:30pm and pleaded with Ikenna, my parents’ domestic help, to join me in digging her grave. About 1 hour and 3 feet later, we were done. We lowered her into the ground and as I heard the dull thud made as the first shovel full of sand landed on her box, 1 tear drop finally rolled down my right cheek. It was dark so Ikenna couldn’t have seen the tear drop but he must have noticed something because we paused for a few seconds before continuing to cover up her grave. It was in those few seconds that it dawned on me that I’ll never see Pearl again — with her white fur, golden brown, pirate like eye-patch around her left eye, golden brown ears and a proudly raised tail. I’ll no longer yell “Stop it!” when she instigates a fight with one of her parents. I may have to reverse the ban on climbing my bed. It was finally clear to me that the end of the road had come for Pearl, and it came very prematurely.
Now, I’m determined to make sure she isn’t forgotten so easily. I’ll take a page from her book and “experience [almost] everything at least once so I can form my own opinions about them”. I’ll share some of them with the world in “Changing lenses” and other subsequent projects. The rest, I’ll keep with me in the form of lessons and treasured memories, sharing them with the occasional friend or grand children.
Pearl Anumanu may have been just under 6 months old when she died, but she has had a lasting impact on my life. RIP Pearl. All Dogs go to heaven.
