There was a running joke in the family that our brother cracked through the years. “Caezer is so old that now we only curtsy him. After all, you’ve to respect elders and he is the eldest among us.”
Today we are celebrating Caezer, the oldest canine of our pack who crossed the rainbow bridge last week. The boy lived for 17 years, leaving behind a bagful of memories for us to cherish. Our hearts are heavy but Caezer, given he lively nature, would have liked us to remember him differently. So, here we are celebrating Caezer.
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Little fur-ball, many shenanigans
Every time my aunt retuned from her trip to the US, where Caezer lived, I’d ask her – so how is Caezer doing. And she’d say, “Growing old, just like me. He sleeps a lot but the moment I open the biscuit packet in the kitchen to have with my morning tea, Caezer emerges at my feet.”
Yes, the boy loved biscuits. He was a foodie just like our family. One Christmas – or was it Thanksgiving, I can’t remember, Caezer managed to ransack the waste bin. Next thing, he had to be rushed to the veterinary clinic for a stomach wash. “He had happily snacked on the last bits of some chicken legs, we realised later. Besides the worry, the boy made us pay a $500 bill,” my brother joked.
Oh yes once Caezer also managed to sneak out of home. The boy was missing his hu-mom so bad that he ventured out looking for her. “He gave us a scare so bad that it felt like a heart attack until the neighbour found him and brought him back to us,” my aunt told me later. The boy had a naughty side 😊
They always love in abundance
Caezer was the family’s goofball. Their cuddle-cum-zen master. Caezer walked down the aisle looking dapper in a bowtie when his elder human sibling got married a few years ago. He always cuddled up to his younger human sibling as she prepared for her medical entrance exams. Caezer was our brother and sister-in-law’s youngest kid, who will always live on.
Losing a pet is one of the most difficult life experiences. The pain is often so numbing that people find it difficult to go about their lives. “It’s perhaps one of the hardest heartbreaks that you sign up for when you bring a dog home. Every time you bring a dog home,” my partner always says. Yet some of us can’t imagine a life and a home without a dog, because they make our lives richer and full in so many ways. They love us in ways that can’t be described in words. Just like Caezer did.
There’s much to learn from, love and celebrate every dog who enters our lives and change it in unimaginable ways. And I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes:
“I believe animals know more than we ever will about how the earth works, about how connected we all really are, about life, about death” – Julie Barton, The Dharma of Dogs
