On Love & Memories

Prince as a senior dog, in his final months.

Nobody can play with M when Prince is there. As soon as she screams, which she often does, Prince starts barking at the other player.

— M’s Mother, many years ago.

On that night in the early fall, Prince the dog was dying on a vet’s table. But most importantly and thankfully, he wasn’t dying alone. He was surrounded by the two people he loved the most, M and Baba. And who had loved him equally back. The father and the daughter had chosen to be by Prince’s side.

Worms had been infesting Prince’s skin for weeks and had now reached his organs. At least two weeks earlier, the vet had suggested ending it all, but M had refused and told her father that they could not let Prince die. And so the two of them had spent hours spread over days cleaning Prince’s skin of worms. But it did not help, and now the kindest thing was to let the dog go.

In the presence of death, with their collective helplessness to save Prince, M and Baba were left only with love to offer. They had only the gift of their own presence to tell Prince that they loved him, and want to support him in his pain, just like he did in theirs.

The process of putting Prince down was expected to be swift, and painless. But as in life, so in a vet’s operation room, nothing emotionally troubling is swift or pain-free. Prince’s last moments were difficult, but M stood her ground and watched her friend die until — she could not. Until Baba had to come to stand between her and her dog, so she could not see it anymore.

I wish my niece M hadn’t had to do any of it; it was a lot to ask of a teenager. But now that it happened, I would not have expected any less of her. Love asks us to find within us all our strength, and we give it. And then it asks for more, and we must find that too.

M & her dog, back when they were both kids.

***

Memory, and time, both immaterial, are rivers with no banks, and constantly merging. Both escape our will, though we depend on them.

— Etel Adnan

It’s a summer afternoon, I am lounging on a rocking chair. Art hangs on the walls and shelves are lined with books. Everything’s blurry and hazy. A dog is barking at the gate and M is opening the door for him. I hear her say, “He’s got so many girlfriends on the streets. He takes himself on walks and then comes back. ”

I’ve seen this scene before, I know I am about to say “Unbelievable!,” but the room’s spinning. The books are flying in the air, and suddenly I am on the stairs by the car porch.

M has shrunk down into a little girl. Prince is lying belly up, M is holding his two front legs, and Baba is holding the hind legs. And the two of them are swinging Prince to and fro in the air. The dog’s face is shining with happiness. M’s laughing. But there’s a raw, fresh sadness around us. There’s no mother in the house. The mother has left. I am forcing myself to smile.

But instead of smiling, I am talking on the phone. I am wearing a jacket and boots. Snow from the last night is still on the streets of Toronto. I hear my sister say, “He was just supposed to visit his friend and see the puppy he’s got. We agreed that we won’t be getting a dog. Next thing you know, he’s returning home with the dog.” She sounds amused and excited. I am walking, and my feet go deep in the snow. I try to pull it out but instead I fall.

I am falling and falling, and then I hit the granite floor of a large hall. My bones shatter, and unbearable pain shoots through my body.

The hall is full of people. I neither care nor know if they are friends or foes. I am desperately hoping for a miracle. I can hear somebody cry, and my own face is wet with tears. An ambulance has arrived at the gate. They are bringing my sister home for her last rites. And the young dog in the backyard has started barking, he knows his caretaker has arrived. He barks and barks, and does not stop.

My heart will explode, and then it does explode. Blinding light. I shield my face with my hands.

I move my hands away. Everyone’s gone, but a dog is still barking somewhere. I am under the blue skies, happy and relaxed. The seagulls are flying. The beach’s empty, there’s just a family. The parents, the grandmother, a little girl, and their dog. The girl and the father want to swim in the ocean, and they know their dog will come to swim with them. The mother is sitting on a chair, with her girl’s head in her lap, and the dog is sitting in front of them. I am looking at them —

Wait a minute, I wasn’t there. This is not my memory. How do I know it?

***

Memory is never a precise duplicate of the original, it is a continuing act of creation.

— Rosalind Cartwright

The last cold week of winter is upon us; February has started. There’s no dog in the house. The dog has left.

M’s showing me photos she had found on her grandmother’s phone. Their family’s on a beach. M’s mother, that’s my sister, Aniqa Baji is there, and so is a young Prince.

We marvel at how young everyone looks. M finds a photo of her mother yawning funny. She is also admiring Prince’s youthful looks as if he were her younger brother.

Swiping through the photos, there is one that catches my attention. I’ve seen it before, somewhere. Aniqa Baji is sitting on a camping chair, and M’s head is in her lap. Prince is sitting on the ground in front of them. The photo is taken by M’s Baba.

I look at the photo. It is a window into the world my sister had built lovingly. A world that was so beautiful that even when she had to leave, she left her girl a dog for a friend.

I look at the three of them, they are radiating love and homely bliss. Completely unaware of the heartbreaks and deaths lying ahead. I am not there, but this photo is a happy memory. It’s a memory of a memory. I’d like to keep it. It is now my memory.

***
Things are shifting fast. There are colors and faces, and sounds and fury. I am being pulled back. So many memories to recall, so many windows to look through.

M and I are standing on the car porch. The scene is almost fluttering as if we are in a dream. Prince has died the night before, and I can hear myself say to M, “It’s okay. You can cry. You don’t have to be strong.”

M’s face breaks down, but instead of crying, she’s walking on the street, and Prince is with her. A group of astray street boys is looking toward them. M can sense that they were about to catcall. But before anybody could say or do anything, Prince jumps forward and starts barking at the boys, who all run away instantly.

The boys are gone. M’s back to being little. She’s holding Prince’s leash, but he sees a cat and runs after it. M flies in the air. And falls into her home. She is sitting on the floor pulling away the worms from Prince’s emaciated, diseased body. But she’s swimming in the ocean, and Prince too is in the water, paddling his feet to reach her and Baba.

The blue of the ocean and the skies are merging. On a beach far away, a woman is walking wearing a sunhat. There’s nobody there except for her and her dog. She stops by to look at the beautiful corals, or maybe it’s a unique rock formation. Her feet are leaving marks on the sand. She sees a large beautiful shell, picks it up, and places it in her bags of shells. Her dog is circling around her, his tail wagging. And I’m looking at them —

Wait a minute, I wasn’t there. This is not my memory. This is not even a memory. How do I know it?

***

Memory resurrects the dead.

— Etel Adnan

Spring is here. M has messaged me a photo of Prince where he looks wet due to rain, and all his hair is plastered to his body. The photo’s caption says, “Prince looks like a choha,” a rat. The text’s followed by a laughing-on-the-floor emoji. M’s love for her first dog is intact.

On the street, I can see the pink champas blooming, and bougainvilleas being covered with bright flowers, red, pink, yellow, and white. Prince is no more on the vet’s table. He has left M & Baba, and has gone onwards. Where? Nobody knows. His body was left near where Mamma is because that idea comforted M: two of her loved ones lying near to each other.

I am sad that the world Aniqa Baji had built, one more of its inhabitants has gone. Someday her world will vanish completely.

But I’m also happy that one of her friends is now with her. I’m thinking of their photo on the beach, and in my head, M’s Mamma and Prince are back somewhere on another beach. And Aniqa Baji is walking between the rocks and observing the corals, collecting beautiful shells. And Prince is circling her, with his tail wagging.

I am not there. It’s not my memory, it’s not even a memory. Perhaps it’s a dream, a wish, or a story I am telling myself. But you don’t live all your memories. Some memories lie in photos, dreams, and our stories. It is now my memory of the two of them. I need it for when love will ask me for all my strength, and more.

A photo taken by Aniqa Baji.

***
Afterthought: While writing a story, in my head, I try to tell it to just one person. Somebody I know in real life. When I started this post, I had a different, simpler story to share with a friend who has dogs. But somewhere in the middle, the story took a path of its own, and I just followed its lead. By the end, it was no more for my friend; it was for me. Many times the story surprises us, and that’s when we may have stumbled onto something interesting.