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Some cleaners had started vacuuming outside the door and I felt like my voice was on the edge of hysteria. I turned to the nurse and said, "Would you mind telling them to stop what they are doing?" The cleaners were sent away. The nurse then held Kindi with me as the first needle was administered by the vet. I remained focused on her face as I had been with Binda, but her eyes were milky and glazed over from blindness. With the three of us still stroking and holding her head, the vet then administered a second needle. Kindi had never trusted anyone. While I had wanted to be alone with her, she had always preferred other people around. The three of us stroked her face as I said "Kindi, Kindi." The French vet said, "No more pain. No more pain." Kindi tried to hold on, but with a small and miserable sigh, her mouth fell open and her delicate face dropped into our hands. As she died, it was as if the world had finally betrayed her, just like she had always known it would.
The vet and nurse left me alone kneeling beside her. I kissed Kindi on the forehead. I hugged her body covering it with my own. She had never allowed anyone to hold her close while she was alive. Now she was dead. I stroked her saying, "I'm so sorry, Kindi. I'm so sorry." I got up and walked out and sat in the surgery. It was now after closing time. The 'rainbow man' had gone. The vet asked me if I would be all right. I didn't respond. I looked back through the open door and saw Kindi's small black and white body lying on the mat on the floor. After almost sixteen years, it was the last time I would ever see her.
Back on the day that there was the real prospect that I might lose Binda to liver failure overnight, the French vet had shared a terrible tragedy from her own life with me. As it turned out it was something I would never forget. Thinking of what she had endured and how she had chosen to keep going in order to assist other animals would help keep me strong over the long months ahead. As I was about to leave the surgery, she looked at me and said, "Remember what I told you. I do not share that with just anyone." I walked out into the world with nothing left.
Kindi died at 7.00pm on Thursday 3rd March in 2005, at Parap Vet, just twenty days after Binda. As I drove home I looked up at the sky and a huge rainbow appeared over the top of the car. It seemed to be connected to the land on either side of the road. I immediately thought of the aboriginal man and I was told, each side of the rainbow represents the dogs going into spirit. I said, "Go Kindi!" It was the evening and I prayed that she would find 'god' before it was dark. I wanted her to be in a place where the world couldn't hurt her or make her scared anymore. I felt horribly guilty for ending her life when I knew how much she wanted to live. But the vet had said that it would have taken her several days to die and I would not let her die slowly in agony. After Kindi died, there was nowhere I wanted to return to. So I drove to Tricia's place in Malak. When I got there I was in shock. Tricia came in with her son Martin and saw the dogs' collars on the table. She broke down and cried.
I sat at the table like a statue. In my hands I held Kindi's red collar and Binda's purple collar with their gold tags. The smell of the dogs was still on them. But they were gone. I said to my friend that I would not let go of them. I was then told, you will meet Binda again, while on Earth, through someone else. At that moment a young cat walked straight through the front door of the rented townhouse. He startled us all, since we didn't expect to suddenly see an animal after what had just happened.
Tricia said that she did not know of any cats in the area, since they were not allowed in the block. He was a pretty little tabby. He seemed like a kitten. He walked up to us and began to meow. Tricia didn't want a cat in the house, so I left and took him back to Giuseppe Court with me. This was the last thing I wanted. I didn't feel capable of living, let alone taking on the responsibility of another unwanted stray. But I had never abandoned an animal in need and so 'Pushkin' came back to Sunset Cove that night, only hours after Kindi had died. I knew that something odd was going on with 'Pushkin', since from the moment he and I had met, he would not take his eyes off me.
It was unnerving arriving back at the empty unit. Now that Kindi was gone, the place felt intolerably vacant. I did not expect to come back to the unit with a cat clinging to my trouser leg. I was not a 'cat person' and nor was I used to the behaviours of cats. But many of 'Pushkin''s actions, including his constant loving staring into my eyes, was exactly what Binda would have done. What is going on? I didn't know. I gave up and went to bed. I could see Kindi's red mat on the floor, but I was too defeated to move it. I also passed her bowl out in the kitchen with the little bit of soy custard still in it. |
