Tag: Loss

Still Here

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I didn’t expect a video game to undo me today.

I was just drifting—scrolling through my PS5 library like I’ve been doing with everything else in my life lately. Looking without really looking. Nothing holding. Nothing landing. And then I opened Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Not because I wanted to play it—just because it was there. Habit. Muscle memory.

The moment my character started walking through the forest, something inside me cracked.

It wasn’t the game.

It was the recognition.

That feeling of stepping into a version of my life that doesn’t exist anymore.

When I checked the save file, it said May 2025.

And I just broke down.

Because that was a time when Zack and Xena were alive. When my world, however imperfect, was still whole in ways it will never be again.

I couldn’t overwrite it.

I physically couldn’t.

It felt like killing something that was already dead. Like I would be complicit in erasing proof that that life ever happened. So I didn’t. I made a new save. Left that one untouched. Preserved. Frozen. Like grief does.

Not in a dignified, poetic way. There was nothing graceful about it. It was ugly. It was helpless. It was that kind of crying where your chest actually hurts and you don’t even know what exactly you’re crying for anymore because it’s everything.

After that I went looking for her.

Goodie Pua.

Instagram first. Then Facebook. Scrolling like if I just kept going I might find something I’d missed. Some version of her that still exists somewhere. I found a photograph I love. One I’ve seen before. It didn’t matter. I held onto it like it was new.

And then a song came into my head. 

Mohammed Rafi singing “Waqt Se Din Aur Raat.”

And that was it.

Because today is the 19th.

The day she passed. 

Five years.

Five years and I still can’t accept that she’s just… gone. That all of them are just… gone.

What am I supposed to do with that?

What does anyone do with that?

People talk about grief like it’s something you process, something that moves, something that softens.

It doesn’t.

It just builds.

It layers.

It waits.

And then it hits you in moments like this—when you’re doing something completely meaningless, and suddenly you’re not in your life anymore. You’re standing in all the lives you’ve lost at once.

Pua.  

Zack.  

Xena.  

Do you know what it feels like to carry that many ghosts?

Because I do.

And I’m tired.

I’m so tired of being the one who survives everything.

There’s something deeply unfair about it. About watching everyone you love leave—whether through death or distance or whatever cruel mechanism life chooses—and you’re just… still here.

Still expected to function. To eat. To talk. To show up. To carry on like this is normal.

It’s not normal.

It’s not okay.

And I’m not okay with it.

When Christina waved at me from the car today, I waved back. And in that exact moment, something inside me just… dropped.

Because I’ve lived that wave before.

I’ve lived the kind that ends everything.

And my body remembers it, even when I don’t want to.

That’s the thing no one tells you—your body keeps score in ways your mind can’t control. A simple goodbye isn’t simple anymore. It’s loaded. It’s dangerous. It’s a reminder of how quickly everything can be taken.

And then I start thinking—

What is the point of any of this?

Where is this going?

How much more loss is waiting for me?

Because it feels endless.

And I don’t have some beautiful, hopeful answer.

If I’m being completely honest—the only reason I’m still here is Zuri.

That’s it.

Not purpose. Not passion. Not some belief in life getting better.

Just her.

Because she needs me.

Because I know how to love her in a way that feels right. In a way that feels like the only thing I haven’t completely failed at.

And even as I say that, there’s this voice in my head that says—

“Maybe even she will be fine without you.”

And that thought… that thought is brutal.

Because it makes everything feel even smaller. Even more pointless. Like I’m holding on for something that may not even need me the way I need it.

But then there’s this other truth. One I don’t even understand myself.

I always come back.

I don’t know how.

I don’t know why.

I don’t even feel like I want to sometimes.

But I do.

Every time I’ve hit this place—where everything feels meaningless, where the weight feels unbearable, where I genuinely don’t see the point—I still somehow find myself waking up the next day. Breathing. Moving. Existing.

Not healed.

Not better.

Just… still here.

And I don’t know if that’s strength or habit or just survival instinct refusing to let go.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe this isn’t a story about healing.

Maybe it’s just the truth of what it is to live like this—

Carrying too much.  

Remembering too much.  

Losing too much.  

And still, somehow, being forced to continue.

Today isn’t a lesson.

There’s no meaning I can tie this into to make it easier to hold.

It’s just grief.

Raw. Heavy. Unresolved.

A song I didn’t choose.  

A memory I couldn’t escape.  

A save file I couldn’t overwrite.  

And the most uncomfortable truth of all—

That even now, even like this,

I am still here.

The Weight Of Memory

Published on 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.

Zuri After Xena

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I wonder what Zuri must feel,
As she looks at your bed;
Pauses briefly –
Then walks on ahead.

Do dogs sense absence,
Know loss, feel grief?
For sure, when I come home,
She softens in relief.

So does your scent linger,
After a fortnight of loss?
It must…or am I just
Displacing remorse?

She moves more quietly now.
Yet her love is clear:
It doesn’t understand space –
Dead, alive, there, here.

My eyes well up less now,
Though the heart still kneels;
Longing lives on in Zuri;
Through her, my heart feels.