By YOLANDA Z. SOTELO

IT’S such a queer name. And it’s not because it’s the name of a character in the 70s and 80s hit television show John and Marsha.

It’s not a queer name because it is a feminine name. It is a queer name because it was the name of my dog. And my dog was a male.

Marsha silently died in its sleep on February 9. A day before that, Jenny, the household help, told me he refused to eat. Whatever little he ate, he threw up. I gave him antibiotics and some water with sugar and salt. Then water with hydrite. I forced him to drink milk. As if to please me, he would drink a little then will leave me. I knew he was really weak when he laid down on a wet part of the porch. He hated that, always tried to find dry place. I followed him around, patting him, trying to comfort him.

I called up a veterinarian. He needs to be given IV fluids, he told me. Maybe tonight. I have to go to work. I left him, telling Jenny to force him to drink milk through a medicine dropper.

When I returned the night, I checked on him. Tried to give him milk again. I did not see the tell tale signs – that he really was very weak.

It was not the first time that he refused to eat. It was already the third time. The first two times, he recovered after I gave him antibiotics and some fluids. I thought he would recover again this time.

No. The following morning, Jenny told me he had died. Jayi, my young son, overheard the conversation. He started to cry. No, he wailed. “Why? What happened to Marsha?”

I said he died already.

“But he’s so young!” he said.

What’s a mother do in face of a broken-hearted son? I couldn’t do anything but hug him.