doggo – Hearts Still Care

The Weight Of Memory

Published on April 1, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I am preparing to move again.

Not just homes — but histories.

The new place at Yari Road sits with a strange tension in my mind. On the surface, it promises something better: more people with pets, more visible dog lovers, perhaps a more forgiving outdoor space. And yet, even before arriving, I can feel the resistance.

There are already rules. Pets cannot use the main lift. They must use the service lift.

I understand where this comes from. I have seen this mindset all my life — where certain bodies, both human and animal, are quietly assigned lesser spaces. Where presence itself becomes something to be managed, controlled, redirected.

And so I know this will not be a peaceful adjustment. It will be daily negotiations. Small confrontations. The quiet exhaustion of having to assert that my dogs belong — not just in my home, but in the world outside it.

Zuri is used to a garden. To open play. To a kind of freedom that roads cannot offer. Roads frighten her. And I cannot explain to her why her world must shrink, or change shape, or become something she must learn to endure.

I already feel the edge of that future. It sets my teeth on edge.

And yet, strangely, Yari Road also holds a past. A different one.

My dogs were once raised there. There is memory in those streets too. A sense — perhaps imagined — that they belonged there in a way they never quite did here.

So I stand between two uncertainties:
A past that holds love, and a future that threatens resistance.

And then there are the homes I have already left behind.

Amruttara — where I lost Bonzo, Rolfe, Diana. That space no longer exists. It has been erased, replaced by a tower. And now I return to that same ground, as if grief has been built over, but not removed.

Raj Mahal — where I lost Zoe. A home I will never step into again. Some spaces become sacred only after they are lost.

And here, in Savera, I lost Zach. And now Xena.

Perhaps they never truly settled here. Perhaps they carried another memory within them — of Yari Road, of a different beginning. I don’t know. I only know that this place holds their absence now, and it echoes.

And in the middle of all this is Zuri.

My living child.

I am taking her back to a place that once held life, but may now hold conflict. I ask myself: will this be good for her? Will she find ease, or will she inherit my unease?

And then, quietly, another thought presses in.

I want to bring home another puppy.

But where do I raise her?
In a place I am about to leave?
Or in a place I am not yet sure will accept her?

There is so much love in me. It does not diminish. It does not quieten. It simply waits — looking for somewhere to go.

And alongside it, there is something else. Not quite fear. Not quite anger.

But the knowledge that love, when it steps into the world, is often met with resistance.

This move is not just about space.

It is about whether love will be allowed to breathe there.

a Goodbye at Dawn

Published on March 22, 2026March 22, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Today was the day I had been dreading.

The day I would take Xena to the sea—not as the living, breathing presence who filled my home, but as ashes held in an urn. It felt like I would be losing her all over again. For days, I had been sitting beside her—talking, crying, writing—trying to make sense of a silence that came too soon, violently, after Zach, whose absence I am still learning to live with.

And then came today.

Her twelfth birthday.

A day I had always believed she would see in flesh and spirit—but instead, I carried her to the sea.

—

We left just before dawn.

Geeta, Atif, Anand, and I.

There is something about that hour—the world not fully awake, the sky undecided between darkness and light—that feels like a threshold. It felt right for a goodbye.

We first thought of going near the crematorium at Versova, but life, in its quiet way, redirected us. A step too steep. A small hesitation. And suddenly, we found ourselves at the beach near what used to be Chai Coffee instead.

The sea was at low tide.

The morning was still.

And for once, the city was not loud.

—

We walked towards the water.

No ceremony. No performance. Just the four of us, and her.

We opened the urn. And one by one, we let her go.

Her ashes—her bones—her final physical trace—met the sea.

And something unexpected happened.

I felt… calm.

Not the absence of grief, but the presence of something deeper. A quiet rightness. The waves were gentle, lapping at our feet as if they were telling us of all the millions of times they had borne witness to this act. The sea understood the moment better than we did. We stood there, all of us in the water, and watched as she became part of something vast, something endless.

Anand pointed out how a small fragment kept returning with the waves, as though unwilling to leave just yet. And then, eventually, it didn’t.

It went where it was meant to go.

—

There was sadness, of course.

But there was also peace. And strangely, there were smiles.

Because in that moment, I knew something with certainty—I had given her a life of love. I had given her comfort, dignity, and presence. She was at peace long before today, because she was with me.

And today, I gave her a different kind of peace.

The kind that comes when suffering ends.

—

We came back home.

There was no dramatic silence. No overwhelming collapse.

We spoke. We sat. I made fried eggs for everyone. Life, in its quiet resilience, continued. And then Zuri came to the door—alive, warm, waiting—and in that moment, I was reminded that love, even when broken, does not end.

It changes form. It redistributes itself.

And there is still someone here who needs me.

And there always will be.

—

I do not feel like I have lost her again.

I feel like I have completed something for her.

Something difficult. Something necessary.

Something a parent must do.

And I know this much—I have been a good parent.

And she knew that.

The Weight of Love

Published on February 25, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

On Monday, I took Xena to see Dr Dipti. She has always been steady and clear with me, never dramatic, never vague. She told me that the mast cell cancer may have reached her lymph nodes. She saw new tumours forming around Xena’s right eye. The large mast cell tumour on her chest — the one we have been monitoring so closely — has grown from three centimetres to four.

She said Xena’s pain would likely sit at four or five out of ten. Not sharp. Not acute. Chronic. A quiet inflammation spread through the body. Not the kind of pain we recognise with a cry — but the kind that lingers like background static.

I see it. The tumours are multiplying. Three on her chest. One large one on her hip, exactly where the nappy used to tie — I have stopped using it because the friction made it form and then bleed. Another one near the collar of her T-shirt. So now, before she slept, I removed the shirt. I bandage the lesions under her chest so she does not scratch at them in the night.

Every evening, my mother, Anand and I sit down together and dress her wounds. Paraffin gauze. Gauze. Fixomull tape. Earlier we were using silver nitrate and Placentrex; now we are more careful, more protective. I give her Maxmoist epithelial cyclosporine drops. Ocupol DX for her eyes. She is on Keppra, Gabapin, Avil, Famocid, Condrovet, Sucrafil, Prolivit, Quercetin, Ceterizine. The list feels endless. She is filled, almost overflowing, with medication.

And yet — at five o’clock l, every evening, and a half hour after midnight — she rises.

She lifts her head. She takes a toy in her mouth. She runs after Zuri. Given half a chance, she will steal the toy from Zuri’s mouth as well. There are tumours on her paws, on her hips, on her chest, near her eye. There is a lipoma near her anus that we clean gently every day. Her body is fighting a war. She still wants to play in the sunset.

That is the cruelty of this stage. The body falters. The spirit does not.

Dr Dipti gently said that we need to start thinking about letting her go. I called Geeta immediately. She was in Jammu. She took a flight and came down last night. That is what love looks like in our family — we gather when it matters.

I am not ready. Not after losing Zach less than a month ago. I cannot bear the thought of losing another child so soon. It feels like Zuri all over again — that tearing open of the chest, that helplessness.

Xena is my baby girl. She came all the way from Bangalore in a tiny crate. She was smaller than a foot when I first held her. A fragile, wee little thing who trusted me without question. She grew into the most intelligent, observant companion. On walks, if she is ahead of me, she turns to check if I am following. If Anand is about to take them downstairs and I step into another room, she comes back to ask when I am coming along. She waits for me.

She has seen everything.

She has seen Rajmahal. She has seen me in love and in heartbreak. She has witnessed my journey through open relationships and the quiet complexities that come with them. She has seen my buas — Munni and Goodie Pua. She has known my aunts while they were alive. She was there when my mother came through cancer. She saw me emerge from a very dark space in my life. She lived through COVID with us. She was there when my father died. When my aunts died. She has watched the seasons of my becoming.

Like Zach.

Our dogs are not just companions. They are witnesses. They are milestones in our histories.

I know this path was inevitable. I always knew. Loving animals means accepting that their time is shorter than ours. I have said goodbye before — Zach, Zoe, Rolfe, Diana, Bonzo. I survived each time. I still think of them. I still love them.

I know I will survive this too.

But survival does not cancel heartbreak.

Tonight, I removed her T-shirt and bandaged her gently. I had to put a cone around her neck because she paws at the lesion near her eye. She settled down, trusting me as she always has.

And I sit here wondering: when is the right time?

She still eats. She still drinks water. She still wants to go out. She still plays at five in the evening. She still loves me with everything she has.

How do you measure the end when love is still present?

How do you decide when a body that is failing still houses a spirit that shines?

I do not have the answer yet. I only know that whatever happens, she has been brave beyond measure. She has lived surrounded by devotion.

And – if love could cure cancer, she would have been immortal.