I have a tendency to veer towards the negative, to dwell on the sad. In my high school years, as everyone has gone through, my thoughts were darker, I had thought that things couldn’t be worse. My teenaged thoughts were dark, depressed, and generally selfish, as young minds tend to be.

Originally, the plan was to get a tattoo of a different word, in a different part of the body. The plan is still there, I’m just waiting for the right opportunity (and tattoo artist) to get it. However, I saw this tattoo on Tumblr, one that simply says “Be Happy.” I think it’s a great reminder for whenever I think more on the negative and forget all the good things that happened that day, or for the matter, that week.

Who are your tattoo artists? Can you recommend one for a simple word tattoo that needs little touch-ups?

This is the second day of work without Nomnom. I am writing this, before his short stay with us here slowly fades from memory. Because he was a good dog. He was our dog. He was a puppy that deserved more than what he got from the clinic we went to.

Even if he was my brother’s dog, I had taken to having him sleep in my room. He snored, and had a distinct scent, so he was a visible presence in my room. We even set up a bed for him, given to us by our aunt, whose dog didn’t want the bed they bought for him.

He snored in the corner, and when I would get up in the middle of the night because I had to pee, he would wake up too and check if I was okay before he went back to sleep.

Two nights before he died, I left him in the living room because our Ate Jean insisted that he was used to sleeping there. I got up at 1:30 am to pee and saw him outside my door. When I went back to my room, he was lying down on the side of the room that housed his bed. So I picked up his bed from the living room and set it down the usual space and we went back to sleep.

He made life interesting. He hadn’t gotten toilet training quite yet, and if you weren’t careful, you would go back to your room with a couple of surprises on the floor. It wasn’t his fault, we really didn’t train him enough on where the bathroom was. Since he had spent a lot of time without fur, we couldn’t bear leaving him a long time outside because he would be freezing after a few minutes, even with the sad little tank tops my mom made for him to keep warm.

Everybody had a different name for him. My brother named him Nomnom. My sister called him Nommy. I called him Nomdog. My dad simply called him “psst!”. Mom and ate Jean basically just picked him up and gave him rubs and hugs. He may not have been the dog to run when you called him, but he looked and knew that he was all those dogs.

He liked sleeping or lying down on people’s slippers or feet. The theory we had about this was that he liked the warmth. You’d realize that he was there because you’d smell him, or feel his warmth on your toes, or heel.

He liked soft things. We first noticed this when he was still staying at my brother’s room and go straight for the bean bag to nap, or when my sister left her door open, straight to her bed and inside the covers.

He wasn’t a barker. We rarely, if ever heard him bark. He did purr when he was happy, because he made the sound when being given rubs or when he was on somebody’s lap.

He liked to scratch walls or couches. We think it was him burrowing down to nap, because after the scratching and trying to burrow, we’d hear snoring after a few minutes.

He liked to play, but he had a limit. Our other dog, a lab mix named Oprah is quite energetic and three times his size, and after a few minutes of play with her, he would hide between somebody’s leg or inside my mom’s sewing machine, or on the base of the electric fan near the Christmas tree.

He didn’t like people food. He would sniff them, but would never steal or try to eat any of the stuff that was out there.

He wasn’t a needy dog. He would never come when called. He would wait for you to squat down to his level and that’s when he would approach, knowing he would be rewarded with a rub, or a few seconds of play.

The house feels so different without the little guy. The floors almost antiseptically clean. Our feet are quite safe from invasion. Even Oprah has a surplus of energy and seems like she’s looking for the playmate she had for a few months. It’s extra quiet without him snoring in the corner.

We miss him. Every second.

Our puppy, Nomnom died yesterday. I am too devastated to talk about it, but my mom found the courage to write about it since she wants to save other people the grief we’re going through right now. Here are her words:

Our sweet, lively puppy died yesterday, 2 days after a medicated bath given by St. Francis Animal Clinic in Visayas Avenue, Quezon City. It was a treatment for galis, or scabies. No post bath instructions, no precautions, no warnings to use a cone to keep him from licking, no instructions on what to do if his behavior changed or showed signs of adverse effects. They didn’t even tell us what he was bathed in. The first bath administered by Julie Fajardo resulted in lethargy, loss of appetite. We thought it was because of the effects of the antibiotic Cefalexin on his tummy. He pulled through the first time, but we were told that this had to be done every week for the next two months. The second bath was scheduled on December 28 but we postponed it since he had not fully recovered yet, and with his first New Year’s Eve looming, we thought it would be too stressful to get before then.

When he showed that he was back to his sweet and loving self, we brought him to Mac Young of St. Francis Animal Clinic for his second treatment and took him home at 3 pm. He stopped eating and drinking January 3, and had difficulty breathing January 4. He was dead upon arrival when taken to another veterinarian’s clinic at 4 pm. When confronted about the death, Mac Young denied any liability on the tragedy. No words of comfort, just a copy of the drug information used, Amitraz, which highlights adverse effects, and what to do after the bath. This was too little too late, as if we had been given this leaflet, we could have followed the instructions. It was given to us when it no longer mattered. Our hearts are broken but for the thoughts that Nomnom is in a happy place now.

Isn’t it true that all dogs go to heaven? Well then he deserves all the happiness that heaven has for him now.

St. Francis Animal Clinic is at:

36-B VISAYAS AVE. EXT’N. TANDANG SORA, PASONG TAMO 1116 Quezon City, Philippines

0928 625 6949, 924-98-66

They also have a branch at:

402-C3 Tandang Sora Ave., Culiat, Quezon City.
Contact No.: 454-87-21

Their facebook page is found here.

The veterinarians that treated our pup were: Julie Fajardo and Mac Young.

In today’s world, it’s so easy to reread your last chapter. Literally. Pages of blog posts. Facebook timelines. Twitter posts. It’s so easy to look back, it only takes a click of a button, a page saved, an album reviewed.

Breakups are messy, and these days, almost always public. The changing of relationship statuses. Instagram posts from “Mondates!” to “Finding myself at my first solo adventure”. Vague twitter posts about singlehood. We’ve all done it, and for the extremists, we’ve deleted all the accounts that had any speck of connection to the ex, and started anew.

But on weak, quiet nights, we look back. Check their accounts, see if they’re happy. If you see them moving on, mourn the loss. If it was a bad breakup, you get angry. So many things make things so easy to see that maybe we don’t need to, and maybe we shouldn’t.

True, we wouldn’t have been the person we are now if not for the experiences you shared with an ex. You couldn’t just write off a previous relationship to nothing. If it was a bad one, you learned from it. If it was a great one that couldn’t work, you knew how good could be, and would know to cherish it the next time you find it.

But we need to stop looking back and now look forward. Use the excuse of a “new year, new life” to do so, use a makeover, or a new job, but do it.

Take this closed chapter, learn from it and move on. Stop looking back because it ended for a reason. Cherish the people you have with you now, and use the time you have instead to better yourself, make good on the promises you made to you.

As for me, chapter’s opened, and I’m doing my darndest to make it a good one. I might bump and bruise myself along the way, but it’s what you get for the pursuit of happiness.