R.I.P. Fifi
I was smiling the moment I stepped a foot into the hallway. My mother and I joked about song lyrics. When Tina came running up, I was wondering why Fifi wasn’t there with her. They are always waiting by the door when we come home. My first thought was that she was tired and was just sleeping.
I walked through the hallway and my heart stopped. No, her heart. Her heart stopped. Fifi was lying on her bed, head off the bed, flat against the floor. Her eyes were partially opened, staring into the distance. Her mouth cracked open, at some angle it must have even looked like a smile. What gave it away? The pool of saliva that had accumulated under her mouth.
She was still warm.
Thoughts raced through my mind. Should I attempt CPR? Is she just fooling us? How could I have left her? How couldn’t she have said something? Done something? Anything. She showed no signs of impending death.
It is doubtful that she suffered. She lied in the same sleeping position like she always had. I just wish she wasn’t alone, but happy that she had Tina by her side. I know she is in a better place now, still watching for the morsel of food that drops from our chopsticks, still smiling and wagging her tail, still doing the butt shuffle and sitting in luxurious cardboard boxes.
The breeze outside rocked the branches of the willow tree back and forth. The shadows dancing across Fifi’s body almost convinced me that she was still breathing–her chest rising up and down.
R.I.P. Fifi Chang
9 September 1996 – 2 September 2007