Pet Memorial

My Pet By Anonymous

Image source: Examiner, I. (2018, October 12). Creating the right environment for your garden birds. Retrieved from https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/outdoorsandgarden/creating-the-right-environment-for-your-garden-birds-875209.html

I have a pet. I feed it every day. It seems happy every time it sees me. I pour its food into the bowl, and it happily eats the food.

Sometimes, when I'm depressed, I sit down next to my pet and I talk to it for hours. I feel like my pet listens to me well. Way much better from any humans I know.

Better than that person.

The following day, I woke up with a sudden jolt. It felt like my chest had been shot. But what do you do when the pain was from the inside? I felt like tearing my heart out just to get rid of the pain.

Every day, every single day, for about one year now, I've been waking up like this. In a mixture of both anger and sadness. Drowned in guilt and doubt whether I had made the right decision. I keep replaying it in my head. One day, I would feel so angry that it felt like the emotion might consume me. On other days, I would feel myself suddenly getting teary-eyed.

But then, I saw my pet looking at me, voiceless but with a look full of understanding. Then I started to feel a bit better.

That evening, I was walking on the beach. A girl was playing with a kite. Suddenly, there was a strong burst of wind and the girl accidentally let go of the string. The kite flew away, soaring higher and higher up into the clouds.

The girl cried and bawled. But then her mother gave her a hug, and after a few minutes, the girl seemed happy again. As the duo walked away from the beach to go home, a flock of birds soared past and flew into the unknown blue – joining the kite.

It was then that I realised something, inside my heart.

I quickly rushed home. I looked for my pet and carried its cage to my front lawn. One small tear rolled down my cheek as I opened the cage door. My pet looked confused. But then after a quick glance at me, it finally spread its wings and flew out of the cage. Flying higher and higher up into the sky above.

I thought I was doing a favour by taking care of my pet, but by keeping it in a cage – really, all I did was entertain was myself. This delusion that I felt I could be in control, the delusion that I was making the pet happy and making a better world. A creature existing just to make me feel in control, to compensate for the anger. However, a pet isn't merely a creature that you have to control.

I recognised what the feeling was just now. It was forgiveness. I finally forgave that person. I felt like a huge burden had just been lifted up from my shoulders. The painful, all-consuming hatred in my heart was now gone.

It was only when I let it go, the very instant I let it go – that I felt in peace.