Five Years

Today is the five year anniversary of me meeting Guide Dog Biggie. Or Ajay, as he was known then. 

For that was his actual name … but over the years that I had him he kinda morphed into being called Biggie full time. Because he was Big. And it seemed to suit him. 

We met for a matching visit five years ago today, September the 1st, 2020. I had known about him for several months – a guide dog instructor who knows me very well had her eye on him for me from about February that year. But then of course covid really hit, and all training, breeding and matching of clients to dogs was stopped for Guide Dogs UK. They were not viewed as an essential service so – it all had to shut down for a few months. 

I had seen pictures of Big, and knew of him, but there were a few nervous months where I didn’t know if I’d ever meet him at all, as many guide dogs trained and ready to go around that time kinda dropped off the training program. They decided they didn’t want to do this guiding malarky anymore, once they’d had a few months of lockdown where no-one was meant to go anywhere. 

But Biggie stayed true to his calling and when we met in the September our matching walk was nothing short of perfect. He even let Stella – barky old bag that she was, who had retired eighteen months or so before and was still convinced she was in charge of everybody – boss him about. 

A little shy at first, he warmed up over the few days we spent together. I knew he really had bonded with me when, on the morning he was due to go back to the instructor to finish off his training, Blind Man Makes was chucking the hoover around and Big reversed himself onto my lap. Either for protection from the blind man and the vacuum cleaner, or to protect me from it, I don’t know which. But he sat with his back feet and bum on my lap, and his front feet on the floor. I knew he was the one for me then.

Since losing him in May I have spent much of the time wondering how I can possibly carry on feeling this terrible, terrible grief. There is a saying that grief is love with nowhere to go, but that seems inadequate for how this feels. I can’t put it into words … only those who have lost someone they lived for – and through – will understand. It is as if the entire world has lost all colour, all joy. Every single second I am just reminded that he’s gone. It’s unbearable. 

I am not me without him. 

I know that in time, someone will come for me who is as amazing, and wonderful, and loving, and sometimes dippy, and sometimes mardy, as he was. The waiting list for a successor guide dog is long, and I know that. I will open my heart and love again when the time comes for me, because in very real terms I can’t not. 

But I agonised over whether to apply for another guide dog because losing them is just torture. Stella was an older lady and retired when her time came and losing her was like being swept out to sea in a storm of grief and loss. But Biggie was only seven and a bit, no age at all. I only had four and a half years with him – and it was far, far too short. 

But whenever they leave us, it’s always too soon. There is never enough time. And how much of that can one heart take before it just cannot stand it any more ? 

I don’t know. 

Here is one of my favourite pictures of him – one of literally hundreds. He is sitting in the back of our PAs car, in his car safety harness. Looking bright and alert and interested because – he knows I have a Maccy Dee’s McFlurry in my hand, and when the pot was all but empty he would get to lick it. Totally against guide dog rules of course but ah, sod it. He was my boy, and he deserved (and got) absolutely the best of everything, including a little lick of the dregs of ice cream now and then. He’s wearing a teal green custom made collar with a bone shaped tag on it (along with his official guide dog one). That tag was Stella’s before him, and it will go on to be gifted to the next wonderful guide dog that shares my life.  

Oh how I miss him, so much. 

Happy Matching Visit Day, my Baby Big. You were the goodest of good boys. Someone will come for me, in time, but there will never be another you. 💛