He once was with me...

  I had been the only child until we adopted my little brother. He came home on the 20th of June 2020. He was the most adorable little thing I had ever seen and I was the happiest person alive. I finally had someone to share my stuff with, whose privacy I could invade, the one I could irritate and just be there for him as a shield to protect him from the vast, unknown cosmos.

I was never envious of him getting more attention. I wanted people to see him and love him as much as I do. I wanted to construct things for him that would delight him. It was like he came into our family just to seize over my photo gallery. We laughed as he did stuff in a half-witted way. 

One petrifying night he started gasping for air. His body shivered as he tried to respire. We left for the doctor who kept him on oxygen and nebulized him for nearly 45 minutes. He kept losing his appetite. We then decided to visit one of our cousins' who is about the same age as my brother. We knew, we had to come back home someday.

At that point, we discovered that he had massive separation anxiety. Ugh! Why? He stopped eating once again, so we decided to take a second opinion when we discerned that the medicine dosage given to him was too high and he had lost a lot of weight. So his medicines were replaced, multiple x-rays of his lungs were taken and he was nebulized every day. This went on for 2 months. 

On February 5, 2021, I took him to the kitchen. He collapsed on his side….at first I thought he was playing but it was something way more serious. I immediately put him on the nebulizer.  Mum and dad weren't home, he collapsed, my grandma was freaking out, I phoned the doctor and acknowledged to her that I was getting him to her clinic.

I got into a cab with him in his carrier and a friend by my side. As soon as we reached, they put him on oxygen. He felt a lot better, right away, and was almost back to normal. Almost. Before I left, my dad gave me a heads up to be ready for whatever the doctor had to say. I didn't know what to think. We came back and he was doing fine. He was weak but fine. My mum and I sat with him at night to give him the medicine, before putting him to bed. Since he slept next to my bed, I saw him in the morning, my grandma and mum were trying to feed him. But, he refused to eat.

6th February 2021, I woke up (at around 10:36 am) to give him his medicines. He was….gone. No sign of respiration. No movement in his fragile body. My heart sank. I felt a rush of anxiety, as I clutched the sides of my bed. I called up mum and dad, who at that time were at the office. My grandma readout religious scrips while I sat there motionless and heartbroken. Tears welled up in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks, I felt an emptiness in my chest. 

We performed some rituals and took him to a crematory. I refused to hold him in my lap for the last time. I felt betrayed. Abandoned. Stranded. I wished to bury him so I had a place where I could occasionally go and 'meet him'. But that wasn't possible. I had to let him go. 

He was lying there on the table, pale, eyes partially closed, mouth relatively open exposing his small teeth, his hands clammy and his body stiff. I wanted to see him one last time before he was gone forever. It was agonizing. I shook his hand as a gesture of saying the final goodbye.

My Tookie was the best guinea pig I had ever known. No offense. He meant the world to me and losing him was the most painful thing I had ever experienced in my life. A part of me has gone with him and a part of him will be alive in my heart forever and always. 

There are times when I feel like forgetting that he ever existed but other times I feel thankful and blessed for moments that I got to share with him; be it studying together, fangirling over King Khan, binge-watching Brooklyn 99 and The Office, snacking, photoshoots, running around sharing secrets, and just behaving like complete dumbheads. I, as a person, would not be who I am today if Tookie hadn't been a part of my life. And I will always be grateful for that. 

If you think you are capable and responsible enough to take care of a living being, go ahead and do it. It's the best feeling in the world. But the pain of separation is supernumerary and totally uncalled for.