On her wedding day last April 20, 2018, Coleen Garcia bid goodbye to her “constant companion” for almost 17 years.
Around 8:26 a.m. on the day she exchanged “I Dos” with Billy Crawford, the bride received a message from her driver that Bambi, as she fondly calls her pet chihuahua, had passed away.
Bambi, who’s blind, deaf, and can only smell a little bit, actually fulfilled Coleen’s request: to wait until her wedding day.
In her YES! Magazine interview last September 2017, Coleen said, “So every time, I’d whisper to her since a long time ago, and I’d tell her to at least wait until she could give me away on my wedding day.”
“Binubulong ko sa kanya ’yon every time, like, nanghihina siya or nagkakasakit siya.
“Binubulong ko talaga sa kanya na antayin niya naman na maipamigay niya ako sa wedding ko.”
Her dog, as Coleen described in her Instagram post last January 4, 2017, “has been my guardian angel since I was 9 yrs old…
“If you know me personally, you’d know this. She’s been the most consistent thing in my life, and even when I had nothing & no one, I had her.
“I can never put her love & loyalty into words, and I don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to her.”
Mrs. Crawford wrote on her Instagram post today, April 29, “On the night before we had to leave for the wedding, I saw how weak she was. It broke my heart.
“I hugged her and prayed to God, thanking Him for her life and companionship; for using her to remind me that I was never alone, and that someone was always watching over me.
“I thanked her, too, and I told her for the first time ever that it’s okay for her to rest now…
“I prayed to God that if it were to happen, I just hoped that it would happen while we weren’t home so that I wouldn’t have to see it.”
She continued, “How I felt was unexpected. I was purely filled with joy.
“I couldn’t even find it in me to be sad because I felt it would make me so greedy.
“How could I ask for more when God has blessed me with this much?
“She left me not a day before, not a day after, but waited until the actual DAY of my wedding. How amazing is that?
“All the tears I shed for Bambi now are never sad; only tears of joy and gratitude at the thought of God ushering me into this new chapter of my life, after all the turbulent times I have had to endure in the past.
“A clean slate, a new beginning.”
Rest in peace, Bambi!
