Marsha
It’s such a queer name. And it’s not because it’s the name of a character in the 70s and 80s hit television show John and Marsha.

It’s not a queer name because it is a feminine name. It is a queer name because it was the name of my dog. And my dog was a male.

Marsha silently died in its sleep on February 9. A day before that, Jenny, the household help, told me he refused to eat. Whatever little he ate, he threw up. I gave him antibiotics and some water with sugar and salt. Then water with hydrite. I forced him to drink milk. As if to please me, he would drink a little then will leave me. I knew he was really weak when he laid down on a wet part of the porch. He hated that, always tried to find dry place. I followed him around, patting him, trying to comfort him.

I called up a veterinarian. He needs to be given IV fluids, he told me. Maybe tonight. I have to go to work. I left him, telling Jenny to force him to drink milk through a medicine dropper.

When I returned the night, I checked on him. Tried to give him milk again. I did not see the tell tale signs – that he really was very weak.

It was not the first time that he refused to eat. It was already the third time. The first two times, he recovered after I gave him antibiotics and some fluids. I thought I would recover again this time.

No. The following morning, Jenny told me he had died. Jayi, my young son, overheard the conversation. He started to cry. No, he wailed. “Why? What happened to Marsha?”

I said he died already.

“But he’s so young!” he said.

What’s a mother do in face of a broken-hearted son? I can’t do anything but hug him.

It was Jayi who gave the dog his name Marsha almost five years ago. Marsha had a brother and was named Marsha 2. Gave the other Marsha away to a friend.

I don’t know why Jayi liked the name. Jayi said he will put a maker on Marsha’s grave which is somewhere at the backyard. And he will visit the grave on October 10 next  year. He cried in school. He cried when he was back at home. He made me promise to get him another dog. Maybe it will be named Marsha too.

As for me, there’s a heavy load that refused to be lifted from my chest. I know Marsha should have been given IV fluids. He should have been under a vet’s care. My petting him was not enough. Shoot me.
I will miss Marsha so much – the way he stared at me whenever I left home. And the way we would be there, wagging its tail and “embracing” me whenever I arrived, getting my clothes muddy from his feet.  There were times when he would surreptitiously go out of the gate when it’s open. And we would be looking all over for him, shouting his name all over.

He was a “terror” to strangers going to our house, a real guard dog. But he can be friendly to a fault, too, “kissing” people he liked and licking them on their feet and legs.

Marsha was an “askal” as Philippine mongrels are called. But he was a beautiful dog with heavy, yellow brown fur and long furry tail.

I still have two dogs, Chacha, 7, and Whitey,5.  I hope to do good by them.