Meet my 'Starry'...

I peered down into the dark pit… I was sure everyone could hear the anxiety in my heart… oh please let me find her….. alive and not dead…

My adopted dog had just had a litter of 7 pups and M and I had taken up the joy of the responsibility of treating them like our very own… our day began and ended with ‘waggy’ and her babies… M told me the very first time I saw them and made strange sounds, ‘don’t get attached to them please…’ and I saw how he flaunted that very rule and he bent down to feel their little heads with his fingers… we fooled ourselves everyday that waggy was who we cared about… not her babies…
Was on my way back home when mummy called to say that she went down to feed waggy her dinner and found two babies missing… she looked and looked till she thought she heard a pup cry in the empty elevator shaft in the garage where they lived… I tried to get home as fast as I could… no one was helping mummy and it was making me anxious… I was armed with the fire brigade number and plan A and B for the rescue… I was not gonna lose one of the babies without a fight till the end…

As I peered into the shaft… horrified that I may see nothing, I saw a little moving white patch and then a few minutes later a whimper… she was alive… the shaft was about 5 feet deep and there was a plank that was lying next to it…
I could not believe that no one agreed to help… it was ridiculous… how can you know someone so tiny is in trouble and live with the fact that you were doing nothing… inhuman… and poor waggy was so upset… she kept coming to me… agitated… refusing to eat or drink anything… so I walked upto the watchmen and told them they had to help me… and they did not… so I said that I would and that I felt sad that they did not care… and i started to go down… scared as hell about how I would get up… well, someone would have to come rescue me!
And then this young watchman came running and asked me to get out at once… that he would… and i was too stubborn and upset to not do anything now… anyway, got out… he jumped in.. the pup was in water and had been for atleast a few hours… with one giant swoop, he brought the pup into my hands….
Ever felt a trembling heart… oh my god…I felt so relieved to hear him tremble… waggy could not stop licking my hands… and then she went to the young man… I could have hugged him… I sat down with waggy and her soaking shivering baby… oh what a night… we went got more milk and bread and a nice soft towel… scrubbed her dry… she stuck out a tiny tiny pink tongue to say she liked what I was doing… waggy kept her head on my knee… I stayed for a while…

The pup could walk… but she sat in her corner and trembled and cried… she was like a lone star in a dark sky… shimmering… shivering… ‘starry’… M told me not to name them… but this one is special…
I don’t know if she’ll make it through the night… I don’t know how I’ll feel if she does not… I cannot not get attached… its against my grain… I love that creature too deeply now that I felt her heart… decoded that heart beat… ever felt a heart beat and understood in that second what love feels like… grateful that there are ways in which I see and experience that everyday…