Blue Flower was my first pet. More specifically, she was my birth family’s watchdog. She was already part of my family before I started remembering things. My parents named her Blue Flower because her black-white coat had a floral pattern and the dark part of her fur looked more of a dark blue than black. I didn’t know what breed she was. All I remembered was that she was a medium-sized dog who was loyal and friendly, and she was skilled in hunting rabbits and squirrels. Whenever a family member came home, she would run down the road to welcome them and jump up and down on the person with her tail wagging. When it came time to hunt, Blue Flower teamed up with our cat Meow. When she chased a squirrel, after the squirrel dashed up a tree, Meow would scramble up the tree and get the squirrel off the tree. With Meow on the tree and Blue Flower on the ground, the squirrel would eventually become exhausted and end up as a victim of the cat-dog team. Instead of sharing the game with Meow, Blue Flower would take whatever animal she had hunted to my mom. Blue Flower passed away at an old age.

Meow was the only cat I ever had in my life. Like Blue Flower, Meow’s coat was also black and white. Meow didn’t interact much with her two-legged family members, so other than her hunting squirrels with Blue Flower, I didn’t have many memories of her. She died at an old age. Because people in our village believed that cats were the reincarnation of monks, the funeral we gave Meow had aimed to prepare her for her next life as a monk. My older sister wrapped Meow’s body in a blanket, and put Meow’s wrapped-up body in a beautiful new basket. We settled the basket, with Meow in it, on a tree branch in the deep woods.  

Miss White was the first pet my current family had in the U.S. When we visited a farmer in Texas, of all the chickens on the farm, she was the only one that came to me and pecked my shoe. I believed the chicken and I were destined to live together, so I asked the farmer if he would sell her, and he said yes. Since she was white and so innocent, I named her Miss White. Miss White followed me and my kids everywhere in the house, and we took her outside to find insects and to parks and the beach to play. One day, when we left for grocery shopping, Miss White wanted to follow us, but we left her in the front yard so she could sunbathe. Sadly, both she and her cage were missing when we returned. I prayed that whoever took her would treat her as a pet, not as food.

Lumos was a mixture of a beagle and dachshund. She was three months old when she joined our family. Lumos was friendly, loyal, brave, protective, and smart. At home, she followed me quietly from room to room and was always obedient. She learned to do many tricks and toilet-trained quickly. Once, an aggressive, ninety-pound dog tried to bite me, and the thirty-pound Lumos raced between me and the giant dog and barked so ferociously she scared away that much larger dog. Sadly, on a freezing New Year’s Day night, Lumos’s life was cut short. She was walking near the street when some fireworks scared Lumos. She broke free her leash and was hit by a car and died at the site. She was only 32 months old.