This morning something small happened that made me see something much larger. I was sitting outside having my breakfast when my mother came out and sat with me. We began talking, just the two of… More
After Xena
Yesterday, I lost Xena.
Forty days earlier, I had lost Zach.
Two absences in such a short time create a strange quiet inside a house. The routines remain — the walks, the bowls, the doors opening and closing — but the life that animated those rituals has shifted. The house feels different, almost hollow in places where there used to be movement.
Zuri is still here. My gentle, playful child. I love her deeply.
But she is searching.
When we go out for walks, she looks back. As if expecting Xena to appear behind us. At night, when we enter the bedroom, she pauses and looks at the place where Xena used to sleep. Dogs understand space and routine far better than we imagine. For Zuri, the world still contains a missing presence she cannot quite explain.
And perhaps I am doing the same.
Xena had a way of loving that was very particular. She needed me around. Even if my partner tried to take her downstairs, she would wait beside me instead — quietly asking that I be the one to take her. When we left the house, she would stand by the door, hopeful that I would take her along.
She had chosen me.
Dogs do that sometimes. They bond with everyone, but they belong to one person. Xena belonged to me in that way. Life, for her, seemed better if I was part of it.
And so the house now holds not just silence, but memories of a constant presence that used to orbit around me.
In the middle of this grief, another thought has been forming in my mind: perhaps I should adopt another dog. A puppy, preferably. A female, if possible. I have always had a special connection with my girls — Chinese horses like Xena and Zoe, and the deep companionship that seems to come with them.
But the thought comes with hesitation.
Would it be unfair to Zuri?
Or perhaps it would help her. A companion. Someone to play with, to share the rhythms of the house.
Yet Zuri is timid, gentle, and sensitive. I would not want another dog to dominate or bully her. I have seen that happen before. Once, another puppy I fostered grew too rough with her, biting and chasing until she began jumping onto the sofa simply to escape him. I do not want that for her again.
But a young dog grows into the household hierarchy rather than trying to control it. A puppy would learn Zuri’s language slowly. She could become the elder sister instead of the one who retreats.
There is, in fact, a dog from Zuri’s own family in Chennai — a girl who has not been adopted even after a year and a half. She is intelligent and deserving of love. Yet part of me still wonders whether bringing an adult dog into the house might be overwhelming for Zuri.
So perhaps patience is the wiser path.
Perhaps I should wait a month or two. Allow the house to settle into its new rhythm. Let Zuri understand that the spaces she searches will remain empty. And then, when the time is right, perhaps a small soul born this year will appear — one that needs a home, one that might grow up within the love that already lives here.
A new dog would not replace Zach and Xena. Like they didn’t replace Zoe, and Diana and Rolfe and Bonzo.
Nothing replaces bonds like that. Each one was unique in his or her own way.
Some animals come into our lives and leave behind a particular warmth — a way the house feels, a way love moves through the rooms. If another dog comes, it will simply grow inside the space my past kids helped create.
For now, though, there is just Zuri and me.
And sometimes, when we walk, she still turns her head to look behind us.
As if the pack is not yet complete.
Our Love
I let you go today;
I let you go, to sleep;
You are not in pain now
I, yet alive, must weep –
I cry for the love I had:
That which you showered on me;
I bid Death take it away
And it can no longer be –
I saw your body burn –
I saw the love you gave die –
I have met Death before –
I no longer ask why.
If I asked it of you,
I know you would stay –
Alive, you hobbled to me,
Though cancer barred your way.
But I sought peace for you –
Love makes it very sad –
I had you put to sleep,
Now it drives me mad –
You’re no longer in pain
So Death commands I weep –
Because as I let you go –
Our love I get to keep.
My Warrior Princess
Today I lost Xena.
She began bleeding in the morning. Through the night I had stayed awake beside her, watching over her as I always did. Those quiet hours had passed without incident. It was only in the morning, when I finally lay down to rest, that things changed. Within an hour she began bleeding heavily — blood, clots, and histamine from her anal area. Something inside her had clearly given way.
In that moment I knew what I had been trying not to admit for a long time.
It was time to let her go.
My brave girl had already carried more suffering than most creatures should ever have to bear. Mast cell tumours had spread across her body — around her eyes, along her paws, across her chest. Every day was a routine of care: cleaning wounds, changing dressings, wrapping paws, protecting the tumours near her eyes so she would not scratch them. The tumours on her chest needed constant dressing and covering with a T-shirt, though she hated wearing it because her thick coat made her feel unbearably warm.
The lipoma beneath her tail caused problems. Because of her bladder issues she developed incontinence. We tried diapers, but they pressed painfully against the swelling. So we removed them and learned to manage things differently. Her paws needed bandaging. Some days one paw, some days two. Every walk required shoes to protect her feet, and afterwards we would remove them, clean her, and redress the wounds.
She also carried arthritis and spondylitis in her ageing body.
My poor girl suffered so much.
And yet she was so brave.
When she first came to me in May of 2014, she arrived alone from Bangalore in a tiny crate on a flight. When I first saw her, she was hardly more than a foot long — a tiny thing with a black muzzle, a black face, a white diamond on her back, and flashy white socks on her paws. Even then she seemed impossibly courageous.
That is why I named her Xena — the Warrior Princess.
And she lived up to that name every day of her life.
Her first mast cell tumour surgery came when she was barely a year old. Two more followed over the years. Somehow we managed to keep bladder stones at bay with careful home care — coconut water became part of her routine. But by the time she was nine or ten she developed incontinence. Even then she handled it with quiet dignity. Because of a certain tick medicine, she developed epilepsy. She began treatment for that.
She was never a demanding dog. She learnt how to use the toilet in her fourth day in our home. She was barely two months old. She never fussed or troubled anyone for walks or toilet breaks. She simply did her business quickly and efficiently. But she had personality in abundance. She loved playtime. All of the toys were hers! She was not a sharer.
Xena was always “in your face”, always present. She followed me around the house like a small lamb, bounding beside me like a little goat.
On walks she was always off the leash. Perfectly obedient, yet delightfully independent. Every few steps she would turn around to check whether I was still behind her. That small habit, that constant glance back, was her way of making sure her world was intact.
Whenever Anand picked up the leashes to take the dogs downstairs, Xena would be the only one who returned to the room to check whether I was coming. And if I stayed back, she was the only one who would hesitate at the door, waiting for me.
She trusted me completely.
She was also the last of my dogs to have witnessed a different chapter of my life — a time when my aunts were alive, when the house was full, when my circle of friends was large and laughter came easily. She was there through the storms as well: through heartbreaks, through struggles in my relationship, through the loneliness of COVID, through the grief of losing my aunts.
Through it all, she stayed.
Patient. Loyal. Watching.
Waiting by the door for my return.
I have known this heartbreak before. When Zoe left, a piece of my heart went with her. And now Xena has taken another piece with her.
These girls of mine — Diana, Zoe, Xena, and now Zuri — they arrive quietly into my life and carve out enormous spaces in my heart. And when they leave, they take those pieces with them.
Today Xena has taken hers.
There is a vacuum where she used to be. Like Zach, I feel her absence intensely. I write this in the first 24 hours of losing her. I haven’t shut off the alarms for her medicines. Or her coconut water time. Or emptied the two boxes filled with medicines for her tumours, her eyes, her chest, her anus, her paws. It’s all around me – spinning cartwheels…
But wherever she is now, I hope that my warrior princess has finally found what this world could no longer give her: rest. A state where there is no pain, no tumours, no dressings, no cones, no wounds to clean.
Only peace.
The suffering has ended for her.
The only one left to suffer is me.
Because I still do not know how to live in a world where hearts as pure as theirs — creatures capable of such boundless loyalty and love — are only given such a short time among us.
She spent her life looking back to see if I was there. Now I will spend the rest of mine looking back to remember that she was.
But you, you rest now, my brave girl. Your battles are done.
Hearts Still Care 
You must be logged in to post a comment.