Gappi... My Dear Old Girl

After a long silence, only because of being immersed in the hands-on work I do for my dogs on my own, I thought of sharing my heart with words that can explain it....

Last year was about courage and change, all of which was possible through determination. I faced several challenges that we all do when it comes to saving and loving dogs, especially on the streets but I was protected from grief. It was a good year.

But this year began with challenges of a different sort from day one! 

From grief at fighting people, drunk & unreasonable, to the grief I went thru when a resident beat my dogs while they were waiting peacefully for me for their food, to grief encountered through debilitating Canine Distemper which affected a litter of pups and took away 4 of them....one day they were happy playful puppies and the next slumped under the CD virus. I tried as hard as I could, but I failed to save them. Another abandoned dog who wore the look of human betrayal on his handsome face was run over one evening just days after I started befriending him with daily meals and friendship chew sticks!

But what me broke me just a few days back was when I lost my beautiful old lady, Gappi....a senior dog well over 12 years old. I named her Gappi because she was loud in her joyful talking cries when she saw me. Her cries were equally woeful at being handled by other people, one couldn't ever put on a collar or a coat on her! But she was made of strong stuff and handled herself as such. She was a constant, and Bruno's bestie. They were always together. Much of Bruno's rehabilitation back on the street after his dreaded accident could be possible with Gappi's constant reassuring presence around him.

Gappi started slowing down from early this year, and  slipped to her end in her last week. A day after Holi when I got her dropped at the boarding, I promised her that I will bring her back by Sunday, knowing that she hated being sent away anywhere from her place of belonging, but little did I know that her return on Sunday would be for the final time. My biggest regret would remain thather last moments were in a place she did not want to be in. Knowing that she was aging and theinevitable would be somewhere in waiting I had always wanted & hoped she could go happily remaining in the place where she belonged and the place she loved being. But I failed her in that hope & promise.

SO SOMETIMES, THE BEST ONE DOES IS JUST NOT ENOUGH! But try as hard as we can, we, the ones who love and try their darnest best to save dogs on the streets, are fraught with grief over the losses that we bear and that only we can mourn and process. 

The hardest goodbyes are the ones that are left incomplete…

How do you say goodbye to the ones that take your heart with them? How do you walk bravely the next day with the box of food in hand, that was so looked forward to with happy eyes, even though grey and a wagging tail! How do I meet Bruno without his shadow/ his cmpanion and his champion Gappi, after always seeing them together with each other? But before that, how do I go there and not be met anymore with Gappis loud cries of happy talk while she rubbed her head and body against my legs, pushing Bruno away to get all the attention? How? Tears have not stopped rolling down my face & soul since I laid her to rest. I was not prepared to lose my old gal, at least not yet! And I cannot bear to say goodbye....I don't want to.

Like a little girl, my heart wishes that somehow yesterday could be erased from time and today as I walk down the street I find her grey eyes waiting for me like it always did.....31/03/2024.💔