And so life goes on and we just live with it!
It’s hard… it feels weird… it feels something is drastically wrong and it indeed is! Carlotinha is not around and won’t be around any longer… coming back home is just not fun now. For the last 13 years nonstop (to this date) I have arrived home to a dog waiting for me. In those days it used to be gorgeous Candy, an English sheepdog we had. She, like Carlota, had no tail, so her whole body would shake, more than a true salsa lady shakes her hips while dancing, when any of us got home. Then along came Carlota, who was ALWAYS so terribly happy to welcome us home, to the point that lately, we had to disguise our entry after a vacation away to avoid her fainting. Two and half years after Carlota came to us, we got beautiful Siggy, a golden retriever, who passed away prematurely at the age of 5.5 years old. So you see, it’s hard coming home where there is no longer any barking nor hip dancing and the only movement is the air shifting around with the door opening movement.
It’s hard not having to go out late at night for the last pee and poo of the day, it’s hard being out and about and not worried to return home so that Carlota isn’t alone for much longer, it’s hard not having her full one meter body ALWAYS on the way of everything we wanted to do around the house, because she was also checking whatever we were doing, it’s hard not having her to check at night and it’s hard us not being checked by her when she woke up as if she were just making sure we were all fine and not needing any help, it’s hard eating an apple and not having her to give the middle bit or not having her for the last slice of the sliced bread from the supermarket, it’s hard not needing to keep small plastic bags for her poos… it’s tough, really tough… and the reason why it’s tough is because dogs ARE indeed men’s very best friends and as best friends, they are always there, always available for what you might need.. they are there, just there, right by your side, ready to be loved and ready to love you! Such an amazing unconditional love they give us, oh how marvelous!
I never realized how much company these dogs have kept me. In the last years, I was NEVER alone, never, I mean never… even when Joel was away, the girls out of the country and the helper on holiday I had them to talk to, to hug and to worry. I don’t mind being alone, but it’s just a new circumstance that I was not used to and that makes her absence even more obvious.
Carlota’s life was mission accomplished and that is a very comfy feeling we are experiencing. She lived life in full, at its max, at all times and that was very cool!
Although difficult for me, because I re-live the whole thing again and again, it fills my heart with immense satisfaction situations like when I called the driver who picked us up at the airport when we first arrived here in Panama to schedule a new pick up with him and as I start reminding him who I was, he interrupts me and says: “Senora Odila, I don’t remember you but I remember Carlota” and gives me a big laugh, or the child who had a “date” with Carlota every afternoon downstairs and sees me without her and goes “au au?” (Spanish for barking in children’s language) twisting her hands as in “where is it? or the senior gentleman who parks his car right next to us in this building and sees me without her and asks: “where is Princesa Carlota?” or even the valet parking guy from a fancy hair dresser in the neighborhood who used to see Carlota and I walking and now sees just me and asks for my “granny dog”… it really fills my heart with delight… it’s pure bliss!
Once again, thank you very much for ALL your very loving expressions of care towards us. As a friend of ours said when she called: “I am calling but I have nothing to say”, she says… “I just want to be there with you and for you” and that is what happened with all of you. It was like you were here for and with us. Thank you thank you!
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