The Reason For My Absence

I feel terrible about ignoring the blog. Yes, I call myself a writer. I have a quill tattooed on my wrist and hence, there’s just no excuse for not writing. As usual, Prolific Dyslexic made sure I was reminded of the lack of writing and I was overcome with guilt. Since the last few months, I’ve been on some kind of a drug. Time never seems to be enough (well, not that I had all the time in the world but hey!) The reason? The reason may well be ‘Love’.

I never really shared it on the blog but my family lost our pet of 15 years earlier this year. This angel of a cat, in her passing away, had left a deep void in our lives. My dad had decided that there would be no other pets because nobody could take Mulayam’s place in our lives. But then life suddenly changed. As I sat wallowing in misery, unable to sleep I saw a tweet pleading me to help find a home for a puppy in a twitpic. I clicked on the twitpic and I knew it. This was my puppy. I don’t know how I managed to convince my parents. I don’t know how a dog hater like my mom managed to allow it, but the very next day I walked into our house with a tiny little puppy in my arms.

Of course, he was cute to look at but he liked gnawing on everything, he loved peeing everywhere and he loved pooping on the carpet. Horror! After spending days (and nights!) running after the puppy, cleaning the floor with Dettol and trying hard to train him, life threw another surprise at me. The stray cat who was adopted by the watchmen of our building died leaving behind five day old kittens. When I found them, they were a little bigger than my fingers, furless and their eyes were unopened. They were soaked in rain and in milk that the watchmen had tried to feed them. The three kittens were crying, literally wailing for their mum. She wasn’t coming back. Just the thought brought back traumatic memories of Bambi (I’m not forgiving the uncle who gifted me that video!) With help from some very warm folks on twitter, the vet and my mom, I started feeding the kittens and caring for them like they were my own children. This involved feeding them every 2 hours with a bottle even through the night, massaging their bellies so they can pee and poop and keeping them warm and loving them enough to force them to survive. In addition to Bono’s (my puppy) training and my newly found writing assignments, caring for the kittens consumed me!

Every now and then, the vet would tell me to be prepared because the kittens hadn’t had their mother’s milk and therefore were fragile. But my little kitties were fighters. In fact, after their deworming, one of the kittens- Yoda started throwing up, could not poop and started to lose strength. He lost weight and had stopped eating. I was too scared to check on him, too scared that he was going to die on me. But he didn’t. He fought through and became the most notorious of the three.

The kittens are now a healthy lot. They play, they run and they scratch. The puppy and the kittens taught me that I had a lot of love and care in me to give. And that the greatest joy in life was to selflessly love someone to make their life a better place.

Sometimes I catch my puppy looking at me with all the love in the world and my world comes to a stop right there. In that moment, I feel loved, I feel love and there’s this warmth that engulfs my heart and makes me feel so glad to be alive. I know I gave Bono a home. I know I gave kittens care and love of a mother… But what they have given me is much more. They have given me hope. They have given me a reason to smile. They have given me the ability to feel alive. For that I will forever be grateful.

And much like a new mother I’ve gone on about my new pets. In conclusion, the pawsome foursome is the reason why there haven’t been many blog posts. Compulsive Writer is now a Compulsive Pet Obsessed woman! Forgive her absence?

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