Many of my pictures I have of Lucky came in her later years
with my sister getting a camera along with my brother and I getting Android
phones. Some of Lucky’s happiest pictures came at a time after Senior year high
school graduation. That summer, before, we headed to the airport, we brought
her to run and play at the widespread, grassy field of my very close by elementary
school. This was not the first time we had brought her there to exercise. We
had this tennis ball launcher that we would use for her to sprint and chase the
ball similar to that of a lion sprinting after an antelope. Her ability to run
with vigor and a bounce in her step from being excited of playing a simple game
of fetch could always light up my day.
Bringing her to my elementary school does not yield all
wonderful memories though. During sophomore year of high school, I lost Lucky.
I had developed an irresponsible habit of letting Lucky run on the field to do
whatever she wanted, while I played at the basketball courts with my brother
and Amrit, whom at the time, we were pretty good friends. The field is spacious
but is gated all around with one small exception. Now after the two previous
times of having Lucky nearly running off, it’s completely reasonable to be
thinking, “why in the world would she be playing in the field without
supervision?” I sigh when I type this. I got into a comfortable routine where I
felt it was relatively safe that I would always be able to find her when I was
done playing ball. There were times where the sun had set 4/5ths of the way, and
I would call out her name and/or look for her on the field, and every single
time, I had found her after no more than 20 seconds. I realized in the back of
my mind that it was not 100% fool proof, but at the same time, since it had
always worked before with no real problem, I fell into the temptation of being
able to give Lucky lots of time outside, along with myself having fun. Well,
one Friday evening, my luck changed. It didn’t feel different from any other
day. I let her run loose on the field while I played ball with my brother and
our friend. But when it came around evening time, I looked towards the field to
obtain a location on Lucky. I did not see her immediately upon my scan. I walked
towards the field and continued my scan left to right, to only not see her
again. I was hoping my brother would say, “Oh, I see her. There she is”, to
give me a sense of relief. At this point, I’m sure I started to worry. My pace
towards the field sped up to a slight jog with more anxiety filling my voice. I
could not find her. My brother quickly ran down the aisles where the classrooms
were to see if he could locate her. Negative thoughts came to my mind. All
these thoughts that I previously suppressed and denied that wouldn’t happen to
me were popping into my mind. My brother showed up, nothing. There was one
different thing today than compared to all previous days, there was a group of
high school kids from my graduating year that were in the parking lot adjacent
to where we were. In my panic, I did not care of the fact that these were people
I did not know or people I never talked to. I quickly approached them and asked
if they had seen a Golden Retriever anywhere. One of the guys told me that he
noticed a dog go down one of the streets (not a busy street) and thought it was
perhaps just that home’s owner’s dog. I felt a bit better, at least we had a
location. I ran down the street corner to where he said he saw the dog to look
if I could see Lucky. Nothing. I ran back to the group wondering what to do.
Some of his friends decided to drive around in the vicinity. As slow as the
clock seemed to tick, the sun had been setting for some time and daylight was
nearing its end. I was still frantic in my head. I couldn’t show emotion and
weakness in front of my friend. My friend offered to drive my brother back
home. I didn’t know what he meant. Drive home? Did he mean drive around in the
vicinity? We were good friends at the time so I did not feel that he was
ditching out on us. But amidst the stress from the situation, this thought did
come through my head. Not knowing what else to do, I stayed behind, just in
case if my high school cohorts in the parking lot did find something. I
remember thoughts of “Oh my God, what have I done?”, “Jesus I’m going to kill
myself”, “How am I going to live with myself if I can’t find her or if she gets
killed?”, going through my head. I said a prayer in my mind the entire time
this was happening. While waiting in the parking lot, feeling overwhelmed and guilty
of so much of what had just happened, my mom’s cell phone - which I used back
then – ran. It was from home. I had no idea what was going to be said. I opened
the receiver. It was my brother’s voice. In that split millisecond where his
voiced entered my ears, I was not only listening to the words but his tone of
voice for either sadness or relief. He told me that someone had left Lucky
leashed up on our front gate. Someone had found her and it even looked like they
had bought a brand-new, bright pink leash that was tied to our gate. Oh my god.
How lucky was I. How fortunate was Lucky to be found safe. I expressed my
gratitude towards my high school cohorts for their help. I wish I could have
been more expressive of how appreciative I was of their concern. In the future,
I hope I can develop myself and feel comfortable showing my emotions in times
of vulnerability. I remember walking back through the basketball courts, which by
this time were all empty, looking up at the sky and horizon with the last light
of the day peering over the westward mountain down into the valley. I must have
blown a deep sigh of relief. But from this lesson, I took away one lesson, when
I really needed to take away two. I knew I could not let her run on the field
by herself again. Sadly, this was the only lesson I took away from it. I took
away a lesson on a task-oriented level where I learned I could not let her
loose on the field unsupervised. But failed to see that what I needed to learn
was to be completely responsible for her, as well as, to be appreciative of the
time I had with her. I was appreciative of the fact that I had gotten another
chance with her. But not the fact that I needed to be appreciative of the time
I had with her or to be responsible for tending to all her needs. To not let
her run by herself is not the lesson I should have learned. But not wanting to
be completely responsible for the life that I wanted and chose to have was an
area of my personality that I needed growth in.
From this day on, I found myself conflicted between walking
her or playing ball with my friend. Because of the school work that I had and
my mediocre studying habits, school work and SAT preparation took up a lot of
my day after school, as they did for many Asian students my age. If I am honest
with myself, walking Lucky was less fun than playing ball and on days that were
already constricted on time, often times doing what I enjoyed won in priority
over walking Lucky. This gradual development took place well into my years in
college where we would only be seeing Lucky on the weekends. If I was feeling
unproductive that day, I may have wondered if I felt like walking Lucky that
day. I would convince myself that she could go another day without a walk. From
there, often times, my motivation to walk her developed out of feeling bad for
her being inside all day. This led to walking her, feeling like a chore I had
to do. And this developed to, often times, relinquishing the task of walking
her solely to my 14 minute older, more mature and responsible twin brother. I
enjoyed the time where I would walk by in the house and see her. I would go pet
her here and there, roll a tennis ball around with her from time to time, or
try and pathetically chase her around the backyard when she would pick up a
ball in her mouth and make a playful sound like that of a bark and a howl
indicating that she wanted to play. The only other constant interaction I had
with her was when I was eating and she would come sit by me, waiting for me to
give her some of my food.
During senior year of high school, I became more interested
in hanging out with friends outside of basketball. And the day that summer
after senior year of high school, before heading off to the airport, my brother
and I had fun playing with Lucky. We took some of Lucky’s best pictures then.
We brought Lucky to the field to play much of her younger and middle years, but
in her latter years after the incident of her getting lost, the conflict I had
within myself between wanting to play ball versus giving Lucky lots of time to
run on the field, I ended up electing to walk her instead of letting her run
and exercise intensely, the way she had the most fun. In hindsight, I feel I
should have taken her to the field to run and play with supervision instead of
simply walking her around the neighborhood. Or maybe even do both.
That day, before we left for the airport, we planned for
Lucky to stay at the house of a good acquaintance of ours. Although we were not
leaving her alone with minor supervision and care or sending her to a dog hotel,
which she hated, I could still tell that she was somewhat apprehensive about
being left behind when my family and I left from my good acquaintance’s house.
The first couple times in her life, when we would go on vacations, she would go
to dog hotels, and although I do not know how she felt being there
specifically, her tail would always tuck between her legs when we had to go
there and she would want to be the first one out when we were there to pick her
up. I do not judge her one bit for being scared of places like this. Many dogs
are. I do want to note that the friend I left Lucky with, it is my honest
opinion that he did a more consistent and quality job than I did in taking care
of Lucky. Yes, he was doing it for a fee, but regardless. I love my dog a lot.
Does that mean a monetary value can be worth greater than my love for my dog? No,
it’s not, because money is not a currency that can be exchanged with your
relationship with your companion. To do so is not only morally reprehensible
but speaks to the character and values of oneself. It’s a similar question to
compromising what you stand for, what you’ve worked hard for all your life for
zeros on a check. I’m not saying that when it comes to a certain number of
zeroes where you have to carefully squint your eyes to count to be accurate
isn’t at all tempting, but there is no money on earth that will give you
happiness if you are lost in your identity, lost in what you believe in, and
living a life without a purpose. To accept it would be to trade your life
story, your meaning in life, and in essence, all worthwhile meaning in your
life once you accept a trade of this caliber.
Lucky has always despised being left behind, and I have played
some cruel jokes on my part. There were times where I wanted to play ball while
Lucky was with me so I would let her run for 20-30 minutes with supervision,
then leash her up near the basketball courts while I played so she could at
least have a change in scenery and not sit inside the house the rest of the
time. Then when I was done playing, I would pretend to walk away to hear her
whine and bark while stammering her little paws. I know it sounds cruel. I did
it because I found it cute how she would get so serious over a “little” joke
from my end. In hindsight, I know her anxiety to her behavior of being left
behind was stimulated and persisted by me when I did these “jokes”. I did them
around five times throughout the 10 and a half years I had with her, so it was
not frequent, but at the same time my actions indirectly led to what would be
her eventual passing in a seemingly small and seemingly insignificant way that at
the time, was due to massive ignorance on my part, and would lead to a grand
scheme of things “coming back to bite me in the ass”. If you are an outside
reader reading this for the first time, you are understandably confused at what
I am talking about. It’s hard for me to put a date for the start of what was to
come but if there were a date when my nightmare started, it would be Friday,
August 17th, 2012.
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