What We Used to Be

Misunderstandings untangled kill like bandits:

You might stay silent until you know it’s too late.

Puzzles unsolved raze like speckled grenades:

In time they’ll become the reason for distance forever.

Sometimes I break down, I fall apart.

I think I miss you but I’m locked with no choice.

Sometimes I fall asleep wondering where did I fell short?

And wake up limp with your absence beside me.

I believed in destiny like how I trusted love,

 (Felt safe merely by the stares of your eyes)

But then now I just feel imperfect; unworthy.

I must have missed the boat that just sailed away.

I never promised to give you the stars and the skies,

Yet I did swear to live beneath them with you forever.

That’s why it’s hard for me seeing us changing,

But the worst is remembering how happy we used to be.

Sacri 2.0: Yanie, the Sacrificial Dog

Do you know the feeling when someone is dying helplessly infront of you? Someone who can’t say “no”, can’t say “please not me”; someone who can’t even beg you to save her life. Do you know how it feels like seeing someone who’s blankly wondering what’s gonna happen? Scared but can’t run, can’t even scream? I’ve been in that situation. My eyes are staring at the procedure that I must learn, but my heart is crying in pity as I see right infront of me another Sacri, the sacrificial dog.

That was Wednesday morning, when the sun was shining bright, but my body seemed like it has a frozen core. I woke up late, so I needed to move fast. I knew what’s going to happen later that morning, so I packed what I need: face mask, surgical gloves, scalpel holder and blades, and different forceps. I came late at my Zootechnics 52 class, and surprised by a quiz. Happy that I answered all satisfactorily, but my smile faded immediately when I saw the dog that we’re gonna use for our Gross Anatomy Laboratory.

Yanie, that’s her name. She’s a mongrel, ASKAL as we call her kind, but her gloomy eyes are filled with life. She has a brown and white coat infected with fleas. She’s so thin, and her ribs are all bulging. Some of who saw her say it’s ok if she dies, because she’s not lovely at all. But for me, life is life, and it has same definition between a cared and loved dog to a thin and ugly dog; same as between a human and a mere askal. But even if I felt apologetic towards the poor Yanie, she still needs to face her fate, so that I will be able to learn.

Time came that Yanie has to be euthanized. I wore my Laboratory gown at same time that Yanie was lifted at the table. That time, her eyes are scanning our faces, same as the other group’s black dog at the other table. I know she wanted to jump down, or to bark at us, but she just couldn’t, for her schnozzle was muzzled and her thin body was restrained by several hands. When our teacher placed the basin beside the table, she said we must make sure that the blood will drain down there. That certain moment I know I’m not dreaming at all, and that was really happening.

One of my classmates went out and cried. I know she felt sorry, I know we felt the same and perhaps the whole class too. But I just told myself repeatedly that I have to be insensitive for the moment for this is part of learning.

A clinician student did the euthanasia for us. When he injected the Zolitol to Yanie, she felt down immediately. Before he incised her throat, he first taught us how to get blood from her vein. She was under the influence of the drug, so she was unresponsive to pain. But when he started to open her throat, I can see that Yanie is feeling the pain. I felt so uncomfortable when he cut her jugular vein. Blood was flowing out of her body, and she was just so helpless. As blood flows out of her, many of my classmates can’t afford to stay numb. “Kaluoy niya”, “Ouch, sakita pud ana ui”, “Wala na si Yanie”.

I did my best to stay insensitive, to always think that this is for the sake of learning. But all of my walls bagged down to pieces when we started to inject formalin and let it circulate in her body. For a moment, her body shook intensely. “Look at her taking her last breath,” said Kent, the clinician.

Just think of this, few hours ago Yanie was alive, and few hours later, Yanie was all cold and stiff body wrapped in cloth, placed in the fridge. When I went out of the room, an article about a Vet student who’s been in same situation as mine 2 years ago constantly bangs my mind. Santi. That’s his dog, which he took care for days before they dissected him. That achy feeling that wrapped my body as my eyes read the painful experience of that Vet student few years ago came back to me like 10x more. It is really painful to see someone dying infront of me. And you know what’s more painful? It is when you know that the one dying can’t even speak for herself; can’t even ask us ‘why?”.

But facing the reality, Carl Ace is a Vet Med student, and that simply means there will be more and more of like this as I go further. There will be more Yanie needed to be sacrifice for the sake of learning. And if God allows, thinking of Veterinary Medicine as my profession, all of the sacrificed animals starting from the frogs to the ascaris, to the starfishes and different arthropods, up to Yanie, the sacrificial dog, and including the animals that will be used in the future, their lives won’t be wasted, their pain wont be left overdue, for they are part of my foundation, all I learned and gonna learned out of them would make me a better veterinarian to be efficient in saving lives.

The Wednesday sun came to set at the horizon, and before the sky totally turned blue and gray, one realization cracked out of the experience I gone through that day. Not because they can’t speak, nor they can’t reason, nor simply because they think less comprehensively than humans, they feel less pain. Their inferiority towards human doesn’t allow us though to inflict them pain. But SCIENCE NEED SACRIFICE, and learning needs something like Yanie’s fate. I’m so thankful for Yanie for giving up her life for me, and for my batchmates. And as a promise, your life won’t be wasted. We won’t allow letting ourselves, myself, to fail this subject, Gross Anatomy and sacrifice another dog just to try to pass again. 

For me to learn Gross Anatomy, one life is enough; one corpse is already sufficient to learn what must be learned. This is a sad truth, but someone has to be sacrificed for my education. But I don’t think that was depressing, because I believe that was actually motivating! Life for lives; Yanie for the future animals who need me. 

To Yanie, I promise, we promise, your life won’t be wasted, and we won’t let ourselves to repeat your fate to another Yanie, another sacrificial dog.

Vows and the Ring

A ring to a true lover is beyond a mere symbol of commitment. It is a vow of love until forever. It is a memento of the whole journey of one’s romantic rapport. But for a broken-hearted true lover, it is a reminder of a broken vow; a keepsake of a romantic journey-gone-wrong. Being one of the latter, that’s what I felt. Startlingly, you, my last lover proved me wrong.

I can still remember that night when you gave me this ring in my left hand. I can still feel the unforgettable bliss when you were right there infront of me, speaking your vows out of love while you were giving me the ring. Certainly, at that very moment, I imagined myself wrapped in your loving arms in the golden year of our marriage; like a happy paramour! But imagination stays fictitious as long as it stays an imagination; you certainly decided to make me miss that daydream of mine.

Yes ours was a journey in a rough road. It’s quite too short compared to forever, but we both know that we gambled to endure the struggles and challenges over this one strange love affair. Though ours was so happy - packed with numerous and exceptional chronicles of dates and strolling in the tune of our heartbeats - ours was also painful, embedded with tearful memoirs of misunderstandings and mistrusts. Yet we dared to keep our vows true till forever, but you gave up, and broke my heart.

Through the pain, I just cry at agonizing nights and face the day with a smile. I kept on denying the worst heartache of my life, thus, I chose to keep my thinnest string of chance with you. I kept on proving to you that I love you so much (and somehow I tried to do things that would make you regret if you totally abandon me), but I just end up tired.

We both know that what I only wish is to be with you even in your last year in college. So that it’s you that I will first give my smile in the day, and the last face I would see before I close my eyes. We are like that when we are still totally madly inlove, but you know that I didn’t wish that to repair our broken vows, I just wish to satisfy my heart that still screams your name.

Afraid that I might not fully give you the freedom that you want if I’m you stay with me; you fooled me and ruled my heart with your hoax reasons. Like a dumb, I thought those were true! I wept over and over again at nights that I miss you, and only this ring that you gave me is what I sleep with at those nights when I wish you’re here with me.

Sometimes, I just find myself staring at the ring, unconsciously reminiscing the days that we were like having the time of our lives. Yes, I just think that it is you hugging not just one of my fingers but my whole body at times that I can’t bear the pain of missing you anymore.

As the saying goes, no smoke will hide forever, and I learned your dirty secret. You saw me that certain night crying so hard in front of you. I cried not just because I lived in your lies but because I pitied myself too much of being a die-hard fool. Carried away by the pain that I’ve cried for, I gave back the ring to you and ask you to give it to the one who you will love for forever.

Stunningly, you received the ring with no regret. But later on, you cried. You that rarely cry cried. “I bought this ring from my own pocket to make you happy. That was real when I gave you my vow. I even had hard time wondering what the size of your finger is. When I went back home and lost my ring, remember, I asked mom to look for it and I wore it back. And now that we are not committed anymore, you still saw me wearing the pair of this one. Go to my room and you will see that I kept it.” Those lines that you spoke keep on hurling on my head for seconds until I was refreshed of the memory of that night when you put it to my finger.

I regretted that I surrendered the ring that reminds me that once in my life, someone truly loved me back. I almost forgot how happy I was realizing that someone and that someone was you, had accepted and loved me for all of me: with few assets and long list of insecurities. I know it’s weird, but at that very moment, all I wanted is to get the ring back.

Disappointed and hurt, like a heartless, you never pitied my embarrassing demand. I cried a lot but nothing changed. And it broke my heart when you threw the ring to the grasses. I cried more and kneeled infront of you, desperately begging you to help me look for it. But to my surprise, you pulled the ring from your pocket and put it back to my finger like the night you first did.

I cried leaning on your upper torso, and you just kept on saying

sorry while kissing my head. That very moment I know you still love me, but also at that time I know that I must accept it all and start moving on.

Comforted, we made new vows. I personally promised that I will not wish anymore to live with you for this last year of yours in college. You also promised not to lie to me anymore and you will try hard not to hurt me once again. But I still can’t deny that I love you still, so I asked you not to enter a new love affair as long as you are here in college because it would surely give me a pain that is synonymous to dying. You promised, not because you pitied me, but because you don’t want me to be hurt that much.

You proved me wrong when I thought that this ring is a reminder of a broken vow; a keepsake of a romantic journey-gone-wrong. You showed to me that this ring is a forever symbol of our love; our love that may not have a happy ending, but for sure will stay in our hearts so much deeper than fairy tales stayed on kids’ hearts.

Soon I’ll get over to this pain, I know. Time will come that I will forget all this heartaches. But for sure never will be the time will come that I’d ever forget you my last lover. As long as this ring will not turn to dust yet, the memories of us will forever be in my heart, just like our memories stay in your heart too.