Rainbow Bridge

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace.” - Milan Kundera

I am not the kind of person who could get touched by stories easily, but I don't know why it's that difficult to hold my tears whenever I think about the story of rainbow bridge. More peculiar is that, it's related to heaven, a place I have zero faith in.

When a pet dies, it goes to this meadow outside of heaven. It has all illnesses cured, and there're plenty of other pets to play around with, missing only one thing: its owner who's still on earth.

When the pet's owner dies, the owner crosses the meadow upon his/her journey to heaven. It sees him/her from afar. It couldn't help but leave its friends there and run towards its owner. After all these years, the pet and its owner finally reunite. They cross the rainbow bridge together and enter heaven. They will never be parted again.

I don't know if Debbie will be waiting for me there, or for his original owner whom he stayed with for almost nine years. I don't think I can make it to heaven anyway, if there's one. But I found it pretty difficult for me to carry on writing this entry already, when I have to talk about this sad, but touching, story.

Pretty much everybody who knows me knows that The Unbearable Lightness of Being is my personal bible. I cry every time I read to the scene when Karenin, the dog of Tomas and Tereza, is dying.

I really don't understand why I am so touched by the death of pets. I have never even experienced one.

Maybe because pets are so innocent and truthful. There's a saying that, for owners, their pets might only be a part of their lives. But for pets, they have no other lives than their owners. We're all of our pets ever had.

Or maybe I unconsciously accepted and trust an after life. The long wait for us to reunite is too painful for me.

Or maybe, because pets never speak. You may rest assured that they love you; yes, they love you unconditionally. Behavioural psychologists can never share this thought, because they always like to say that, it's all conditioned.

And the fact that our pets' minds are a mystery to us is itself so enchanting.

Whenever I imagine that Debbie will see me from afar in the meadow and run towards me happily, I break down and cry.

Anything

any•thing pron.
1 used instead of something in negative sentences and in questions; after if/whether; and after verbs such as prevent, ban, avoid: Would you like anything else? There’s never anything worth watching on TV. If you remember anything at all, please let us know. We hope to prevent anything unpleasant from happening. The difference between anything and something is the same as the difference between any and some. Look at the notes there. 2 any thing at all, when it does not matter which: I’m so hungry, I’ll eat anything. 3 any thing of importance: Is there anything (= any truth) in these rumours?

"I can be anything", a friend wrote. He wanted to start a blog based on that idea, but he didn't make it happen.

When we're young, we never understand that we can be anything. We tend to think that we all have a destiny. "I will definitely become certain something."

I never before imagined that I'd have become what I am now. It was entirely unthinkable.

We all learned after a while, for some it takes longer, others quicker, that we can be anything.

Life is a possibility, instead of necessity. We create, instead of realising what is determined.

But without necessity other than mortality, life becomes so light. We don't know how to make our choice. Everything is possible, everything is not necessary.

My friend didn't start that blog. I guess he never will. It's also one of the possibilities he realised. He could have been anything, including nothing.

Guitar

gui•tar
noun a musical instrument that usually has six strings, that you play with your fingers or with a plectrum

I fell in love with guitars when I first saw Guns N' Roses' November Rain video more than 10 years ago.

I didn't even know that I needed an amp to make a sound out of an electric guitar. You see, Slash didn't have one in the video.

Like for all kids, the reality could always be a bit difficult to handle. I learned a hard lesson from Tom Lee's super "nice" sales that I need another grand at least for the amplifier. And I could never dance freely like Slash does, as I will need a cable connected from my guitar to the amp.

I ended up spending all of my teenage extra cash (those left after meals, booze, and smoke) on guitar until I got into university. The first electric guitar I bought was a wine red Gibson Les Paul Studio.

It was a big thing back then. We thought we're spoiled kids.

I practically taught two persons on how to play guitar. I learned from a Christian mathematics teacher in my school, who told me not to listen to the Beatles as they spread false and immoral messages. I found out later it's about the greatness of them.

That teacher told me I would not need him anymore after I had shown him how to bend the strings. That was foreign to Christian music; that's rock (Not sure if Christian Rock bends though).

I refuse to teach any other person how to play guitar. The two buddies I taught are still in my band today. I don't exactly know why I hate teaching others how to play. Maybe I just don't have the patience. And I thought anybody could learn that on their own, like I learned how to bend the strings from reading the notes to the tabs (Yes, there're no Internet, and we had to buy tabs from Tom Lee, a hardcopy tabs book, I mean).

I bought another very nice tobacco sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard from a friend. That's my main guitar now.

I wrote somewhere that, if I died, these two Les Pauls would go to the only two persons who learned from me, who both became much better players than I am now.