Tag: Zuri

The Wheel Turns

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

For the last few days, I have been asking the tarot about a little brindle Boxer puppy named Malaika.

Not because I believe cards can predict life with scientific certainty, but because sometimes symbolism becomes a language for emotions too large to hold plainly. Sometimes the cards do not tell the future so much as reveal the shape of the heart standing before it.

And perhaps that is why the readings around Malaika have felt so strangely coherent — as though they are not speaking about fate alone, but about love, grief, memory, fear, and the terrifying courage of beginning again.

The first cards that emerged were the King of Pentacles, the Queen of Wands, and the King of Wands.

Two kings surrounding a queen.

The energy was not chaotic or ominous. It felt protective. Grounded. Warm. The King of Pentacles spoke of stability, guardianship, home, and long-term commitment — the kind of energy that says an animal is not entering a temporary space but becoming family. The Queen of Wands felt unmistakably like Malaika herself: spirited, magnetic, fiery, affectionate, impossible to ignore. And then came the King of Wands — passion, movement, decisive action, the moment emotion becomes reality.

The cards did not feel like they were asking whether she would come. They felt like they were describing a household already emotionally preparing for her arrival.

Then I asked when she would come home.

The Wheel of Fortune appeared. Twice.

The Wheel is not a card of stillness. It is movement, transition, alignment, journeys, shifting circumstances, destiny turning upon its axis. And suddenly the practical reality mirrored the symbolism uncannily. Malaika would not arrive by train after all. She would fly to Pune and then travel onward by road to Mumbai. A literal wheel turning. A journey in motion. Logistics aligning. One life travelling toward another.

Atif would return home by seven to drive me to collect her.

And that was the moment the adoption stopped feeling hypothetical.

Then came my fear for Zuri.

Any person who truly loves animals knows the guilt that accompanies bringing a new one home. Love is never mathematical, but the heart still fears imbalance. I asked how Zuri would react to Malaika and received the Five of Wands, the Seven of Swords, and the The Hanged Man.

Not hatred. Not doom. Adjustment.

The Five of Wands felt like the chaos of puppy energy colliding with established routines. The Seven of Swords suggested caution, observation, emotional strategy. Zuri watching carefully before surrendering trust. And the Hanged Man whispered patience — the reminder that relationships are not always born instantly but sometimes grow quietly over time through shared space, routine, and acceptance.

Then I asked simply:
Will Zuri be okay?

The Justice appeared.

At first I panicked. But Justice is not punishment. Justice is balance. It is the card that says transitions must be handled consciously and fairly. It reminded me that bringing home a new puppy does not mean replacing old love. It means making room for another soul without abandoning the ones already entrusted to your care.

And perhaps that is what this entire emotional journey has really been about.

Because underneath all of this lies Zach. Xena. Grief. Memory. Fear. The unbearable anxiety that loving again somehow betrays those we have loved before.

So I asked the tarot if Malaika was somehow being sent by Zach and Xena.

The Two of Cups emerged.

No dramatic prophecy. No thunderbolt. Just love.

Connection. Continuity. The joining of hearts.

And then, as if the universe had decided symbolism had not yet been heavy-handed enough, my literature society notification appeared on my phone with Eugene Field’s poem Little Boy Blue.

A poem about a little toy dog waiting faithfully through years of absence and dust.

A poem written by a grieving father after the death of his child.

A poem about love remaining behind in objects, spaces, and memory long after someone is gone.

“Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!”

I sat staring at those lines with tears in my eyes because they captured something I have always known instinctively about animals and about love itself.

Love does not vanish because life changes shape.

The dogs we lose do not become erased simply because another paw enters the house. Memory does not die to make room for joy. Grief and hope coexist. The old love remains standing faithfully in the corner of the heart while new love comes bounding clumsily through the front door with oversized paws and bright eyes.

Finally, I asked what the day of Malaika’s arrival would feel like.

The The Fool came out.

Of course it did.

The Fool is not foolishness. It is innocence. The beginning of the journey. The leap taken despite uncertainty. The willingness to love again without guarantees.

And perhaps that is where I stand now.

Not at the end of grief.

Not beyond fear.

But at the edge of a new beginning, waiting for a little Boxer girl named Malaika to come home.

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.

The Fear of Forgetting

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

There is a strange fear that comes with grief, one that people do not talk about very often.

We speak of the pain of loss, of the tears, of the emptiness that follows when someone we love leaves this world. But there is another fear hidden beneath the sorrow — the fear that time will slowly take the sharpness of that grief away.

And with it, perhaps, the memory of the one we loved.

That fear has been sitting quietly with me these days.

It has been only six days, since Xena left.

Six days since I last saw her. It feels interminable. Six days since I last held her ears in my hands. Six days since I called out her name across the house the way I had done for twelve years.

“Xena, come in, let’s go to sleep.”
“Xena, come on, let’s go down.”
“Xena, drop the stick.”
“Xena, don’t be irritating.”
“Xena, do susu.”
“Xena, come wash your face.”

Twelve years of small conversations that filled my days and nights.

Before Xena, there was Zoe — a love so deep that when she passed away it felt as if a part of me had been hollowed out. And then Zach and Xena entered my life and slowly they filled that emptiness with other hearts to care for.

For twelve years Xena consumed my days and nights. Her cancer was virulent.

And now she is gone.

When she passed away, Zach had already left just forty days earlier. I was grieving him too, of course. But when Xena went, it felt as if my grief found a new direction. All my tears seemed to move towards her.

Perhaps that is how grief works. It flows towards the most recent absence.

Today her photograph sits in front of me. There is a diya burning beside it. Flowers around the frame. Her ashes resting quietly in a small mud pot.

A card arrived for her from the veterinary hospital where I had taken her years ago. They sent birthday wishes. They did not know she had passed away.

On 22nd March, it will be her 12th birthday.

But she is no longer here.

All that remains are the rituals of remembrance — a photograph, a lamp, flowers, and memories.

Her energy, her vigour, her stubborn personality that filled every corner of the house — gone.

And this is where the strange fear of grief begins.

People say that with time we remember our loved ones even more. But what I have experienced in life is something slightly different.

I do remember them.

I remember Zoe.
I remember Diana.
I remember Rolfe.
I remember Bonzo.

But what remains are fragments — moments suspended in time. A habit. A sound. A particular way they looked at me. A unique bark. A quirk. A memory of how deeply I loved them.

The fullness of their presence slowly dissolves.

And that frightens me.

Because right now Xena is everywhere in my mind. Every corner of the house reminds me of her. Every routine carries her shadow.

But time is relentless. It moves forward without asking permission from the grieving heart.

And I fear the day when she will no longer be present in every thought.

Life, of course, continues. I have Zuri now — gentle, timid, obedient Zuri. She has been a little sad since Xena left. Xena was the dominant one in the house, the loud presence. Zuri lived in her shadow, though she loved her in her own quiet way.

Sometimes I think Zuri might benefit from another companion.

But even that thought carries guilt.

What if a new puppy fills my days the way Xena once did? What if my attention shifts again, the way it did when Xena came and Zach slowly moved into the background of my daily life? Some souls consume your time and energy. Some are quiet loves.

What if loving again pushes memory further away?

And yet that, perhaps, is the strange truth about love.

Each new love does not replace the old one. It simply occupies the present moment more fully.

The past becomes softer, quieter, distant.

Maybe that is not forgetting.

Maybe that is simply how the heart survives.

Still, tonight as the diya burns beside her photograph, I find myself whispering a small hope into the quiet room:

That time may move forward,
that life may demand new love,
that memories may become fragments —

but that somewhere inside me
the love I felt for Xena, for all my kids gone, will never truly fade.