SNOOPY

Today, I said goodbye to one of my longest standing, most popular, charismatic and dearest pigs...I said goodbye to Snoopy.

I'm still reeling from the blood test results...the xray..the bloated stomach, the high WBC count, the overshooting glucose levels...you were fine yesterday, then this morning, you stopped eating, an hour after I dropped you off at the hospital, you started gasping for breath, and then you left. All your life, you've been a stable loaf of fat, you never troubled me with any vet bills, never worried me with your health. never had any issues...you were just the biggest mouth to feed and...and...how are you just gone now? how? yesterday, you looked like any day of the last 5 years with me. Fat. Hungry. and Fat.

Perhaps this is your final gift to me, the gift of letting me know you were okay right up to the last day, so I'd have an easier time forgiving myself, so I could focus on the jolly moments all throughout your life, rather than the pain at the end...so that the memory of you propped up on the coroplast stretching for food, just yesterday morning is still so damn fresh in my head that it can't possibly be true that you're gone today.

Snoopy...

your story spans such a long time, it's quite impossible to fit it into one page, just like how you could hardly fit yourself into your beds..

 

aw, sweetie, I know you tried :') 

this was my first photo of you, back when you were still with your mom/aunt/siblings in Canada. and with the date, I know for certain you are 6+ years old. What a ripe old age...you've had a pretty good run, eh?

 
Snoopy, chronicling your life, feels like chronicling my own life because heck, you were in such a big portion of it. I count back to all the different cages you've inhabited the last 5 years, all the different cage mates you shared them with. With Shirley and Jiffy at first, and that poor time when the others decided you were a pretty good step stool - firm and stocky

and how you fell back on your bottom when you tugged for parsley.

eventually to the current cage, where you decided NONE of the tunnels could fit you so..

you know, when you first arrived in Hong kong, for the first couple months I mostly didn't take much notice of you. I was wooed by Shylie's big hair, Snowy's rabbit resemblance, and those were the days I was hopelessly in love with Puffy....but then one day I took you out for lap time, and I figured hey! this chubby one is pretty darn cute!! 

look at that chubby-wub-wub...

then came the time my dad decided to use 'all these rodents as my psychological experiment', and you were the only one who has been successfully conditioned! for the next 4 years of your residence here, all my dad needs to do in the mornings when he's still in bed is shout "UP!", or when he comes home at night and when he enters the room, he sees this: 

day in, day out, without fail, you wait for him to feed you on the third floor, practically toppling over (thank god you're bottom heavy, not top heavy...) the coroplast...all those pieces of cardboard that collapsed under your weight, or simply got chewed away as you were so impatient.

and then afterwards you always had something to say for yourself:
OH MY GODS what veggies?

my goodness, look at those chubby paws...even your hands were fat.

I mean, you did strike up quite a relationship with my dad, and my dad was pretty smitten with you. like that time he would pluck you out of the cage and plop you down on the toilet counter so you get sole access to the wheat grass...until he forgot you were there. never we mind, you had plenty to check out in the mirror in the meantime 

 
dad told me, he never thought he'd have anyone to 'spoil' after me and felix grew up. well, he never thought there'd be a "fatso" in his life either (Snoopy has been christened "my fat lady" by dad)

 

Snoopy, I miss your flappy ears,

your insatiable appetite

your fat tummy that touches the floor when you stand up

 

your nostrils, your tongue, your pink and black front paws.. 

those snowy-snoopy mother daughter moments 

 

how you stuck by her side on her last day

 

and stuck by me all through my revision :
I order infinite parsleys!

 
For the past 6 years, every 3 months or so I'd gather all guinea pig photos taken, put them into named folders, and back them up chronologically on a harddrive. at first I just grouped your name under "the girls" but I don't know since when the Snoopy Folder has become not only an indispensable part of every month, but also one that holds the most photos (rivaled only by minipuff's folder). Your presence in my life, Snoopy, is exactly that - indispensable. and although I'm completely broken, losing you tonight, I'm going to be strong, and I'm going to remember you by your signature look:

You always had that...

Busy Being Fat, Do Not Disturb - look on your face.  

..and just last week:

Snoopy...Snoopy...Snoopy...you took such centre stage in the last 5 years of my life, there was no question about it. You didn't even have to try, where else could you fit in, right? 

I love you so much. I'm so sorry....I don't know if I should have done anything differently, brought you there sooner, pressed for an emergency walk in, rather than our night time booked appointment, fed you more water throughout the day so you weren't so dehydrated. talked to you more, stroked you more, hugged you a little longer before leaving you at the hospital. I don't know...I'm wrecked by guilt, distraught, heartbroken, devastated and above all, I'm grateful you were ever in my life, and for a full 5 years of it. We'll meet again someday, wait for me.