Zach

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I placed salt in the south-east corners of the house.

On the window sills.

Outside the main door.

I circled it around the bodies of those I love — seven times each — some asleep, some awake. Ancient gestures, borrowed hope. The small human instinct to bargain with forces we do not understand when life begins to slip through our fingers.

But love does not always win by force.

My baby boy continued to deteriorate. The mannitol that was meant to help only added new indignities — pressure on his bladder, blood where there should have been none. Blood in his urine. Blood in his stools. The body, brave for so long, began to quietly surrender.

The doctor told me it was time.

You can prepare for that sentence all you want. You can see it coming days, weeks, even months in advance. But when it finally arrives, it still lands like a blow to the chest. It is always difficult to hear. Always harder to witness — the slow, visible unravelling of someone you love.

I have stood at this threshold many times now. One would think death would feel familiar, even friendly. But death never comes alone. He brings grief with him — vast, consuming — and the promised relief feels like something that belongs to a future too far away to touch.

Before the end, I took Zach to Old Raj Mahal Lane — the place where he was happiest. He walked off the leash, free, unburdened, until his legs could no longer carry him. We went home after that. I fed him pizza, his favourite tuna slices from Joey’s. He ate every morsel with quiet devotion, as if marking the moment, as if saying thank you.

Now I wait.

I wait for the doctor to come home, carrying the injection of relief. Relief for him — and perhaps, someday, for me too. When my own body can no longer go on. When I am tired beyond repair. When I am surrounded by those who love me enough to let me rest.

That is what my baby boy is being given today.

And I wish — with every fibre of my being — that it did not have to be my decision. But love, when it is real, does not cling. It listens. It watches suffering honestly. And if ending pain is the last act of care left to us, then we take that burden onto ourselves so they don’t have to carry it any longer.

This is not cruelty.

This is mercy.

This is love that chooses to hurt so another does not have to.

Xena

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

You look behind to see if I am coming.

You would take your toy and come to me running.

You are a grumpy little thing with bat-like ears.

You came to me at a time that was filled with tears.

You journeyed through miles, quite a valiant feat.

When I held you, you made my family complete.

I named you a warrior princess, not a guest.

You have more than passed the strongest of tests.

Life has a few more in store for you, I’m afraid,

but I can count on all the victories you’ve made.

So tomorrow may frighten the hell out of me,

but the warrior in you shall fight valiantly.

I love you the most, my daughter, and that you know,

for every glance you give me tells me so.

Know I’ll be there if, on the table, you feel alone,

waiting outside the doors to take you right back home.

So keep your strength and let them cut the cancer out.

Fight and be strong, and you’ll win — I have no doubt.

My heart aches for all the battles you must fight,

but being your dad, that falls as my right.

Just know, as I see you stick your head out of the cone,

the moment I held you, you stopped being on your own.

Xena

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I don’t know when exactly the anxiety turned into something heavier, but I know it has been building for weeks. Maybe months. With Xena, nothing happens suddenly — it gathers, quietly, until one day it asks to be acknowledged.

Xena has mast cell tumours. Not one or two, but many — scattered across her body like reminders that her system has been fighting a long, unseen war. Most of them have been manageable. They rise, they settle, they dry out when left alone. I learnt early that touching, creams, and over-intervention only make things worse. When I stopped fussing, some of them calmed. One on her ear even healed completely, turning skin-coloured, no longer bleeding, no longer angry. That gave me hope — perhaps this was how we would manage things. Carefully. Gently. Day by day.

But the one in her eye was different.

It sat on the third eyelid, fragile and vascular, in a place that cannot truly rest. When it bled the first time, it terrified me — not just the blood, but the panic in her body, the confusion, the sudden loss of calm. We learnt how to stop it. Cold compresses. Pressure. Emergency visits. Antihistamines. Steroids. Each time, the bleeding stopped. Each time, I hoped it might behave if left alone.

We put the cone on her. She hated it. I hated it more. Watching her try to sleep, try to exist, with that plastic barrier around her head felt cruel, even though I knew it was protecting her. She struggled at first, then slowly began to make peace with it. Or maybe she was just too tired to fight.

Medication complicated everything. Morphine made her dazed and unsteady, her hind legs unreliable. It wasn’t a bad reaction — she ate, she drank — but she wasn’t herself. Gabapentin added to the fog. I kept watching her, trying to tell the difference between pain, sedation, fear, and surrender. I kept questioning myself: am I helping her, or just managing my own fear?

All the while, I was holding another truth — that Xena is not my only sick child. Zach’s body is failing him too, in quieter but relentless ways. Cancer, steroids, muscle loss. Watching both of them struggle at the same time has been more than I know how to process. I wanted to lift them both onto the sofa, gather them into the safety of my arms, but even that felt impossible. Xena wanted down. The cone went back on. Another small grief.

I told myself we would wait. Observe. Give it a few days. Let the morphine wear off. See how the eye behaves if she doesn’t scratch it. Try to maintain the status quo. Surgery terrified me — general anaesthesia, her age, her cancer, the risks, the fear of harming the eye, the fear of losing her on a table instead of in my arms.

Then today, at the vet, the eye bled again.

Not dramatically. Not uncontrollably. Just enough to tell us what we already knew but didn’t want to accept: this was no longer stable. This was no longer something we could manage indefinitely at home, no matter how careful we were.

Dipti called and said we should come at one. They would do quick blood work. An ECG. Check her heart. And then — an emergency surgery in the afternoon. The eye tumour would be removed. And if she did well under general anaesthesia, they would remove the problematic mast cell tumours on her chest too. If not, they would stop.

That conditional sentence mattered to me. If she does well. Not force. Not ego. Not ambition. Just care.

I realised then that this wasn’t panic. This was listening. Listening to her body, which had finally said, I can’t keep doing this.

I am terrified. I am sad. I am exhausted from loving so fiercely. But I also know this: I have not ignored her. I have not rushed her. I have not abandoned her to suffering. Every step has been watched, weighed, questioned, and chosen with love.

I don’t need miracles anymore. I don’t need cures. What I want — what I am choosing — is peace. Fewer emergencies. Less fear in her body. Fewer moments of blood and panic and confusion.

Xena has been brave since the day she travelled alone in a crate from Bangalore to find me. She is still brave now. And I will be brave for her, even when my hands shake.

Whatever happens next, I want to remember this:

I did not look away.

I stayed.

I listened.

And every decision I made was rooted in love.