A Dog Was Crying Tonight.
I read “A Dog Was Crying To-night in Wicklow Also” by Seamus Heaney years ago, and did not realize that there’s a second page to the poem. The poem, for me, ended with
“The toad who’d overheard in the beginning
What the dog was meant to tell. ‘Human beings,’ he said
(And here the toad was trusted absolutely),
‘Human beings want death to last forever.’”
The betrayal. The toad lied to the Chukwu about what the dog was supposed to say (humans don’t want to be lost forever), for no apparent reason either! The betrayal between living creatures shatters me more than the irreversible damage of the permanence of death.
When I was younger, my grandmother was a tall standing tree of knowledge. There was a hundred-year-old walnut tree that shadowed our home in the countryside. Grandma would say that the tree contained all her wisdom, and that I needed to eat all the brain-shaped walnuts that fall on me. Because apparently the tree knows what kind of knowledge lacked in my head. She was a short and chubby lady that’s revered in town. I’d run around the market announcing her name proudly while looting the shops: “I’m taking the soda, my grandma is Miss Wang, you know she’s good for it”. She stood venerable in my mind for most of my childhood. Except for the time when she betrayed the dog.
We had a German Shepherd named Dog in the countryside. She lived outside the house as a guard dog, not as a pet. I, however, loved her as a companion with all my well-intentioned heart (I shared my Oreos with her equally because she’s my friend). One night, grandma decided to bring Dog with us to visit a friend in a neighboring town. Dog sat with me in the backseats while grandma sits in the front chatting with the driver. When it was time to drive home, two of grandma’s friends asked for a ride with us. Dog was kicked out of the car. I screamed and begged to the grownups to make room for Dog, even suggesting to put her in the trunk, but no one listened. I watched the rearview mirror through furious tears: Dog chasing desperately after the car. Her alert face appearing and disappearing after the dust. She ran full speed for I don’t know how long. Eventually she stopped. Tail down. Ears back. Left behind in the dark. I was crushed that night. I sat by the windowsill and watched the shut gate rigorously. I saw the dog hop over the three-meter-tall dirt wall. And like always, she curls up right by the gate, guarding us that night.
Years later, my family sold the house with the walnut tree, and the new occupants cut the tree down. My grandmother passed away when I moved abroad, and Dog also died shortly after her; Dog was loyal til the end. I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to them, not to grandma, or to Dog, or to the tree. I’m not sure if I ever forgave my grandmother for her betrayal to the dog. Isn’t it silly to condemn her for something completely trivial in the minds of small town elders? But I was not fed forgiveness, and have never accepted anything less than absolute loyalty. I didn’t forgive her for her betrayal to me also, for leaving me and never visiting in my dreams.