My Senior Dog Couldn’t Walk Anymore. Before She Died, She Led Me To My Husband.

"Stroking her soft face and trying to keep the tears back, I knew our lives would never be the same."

He had just left our East London apartment for a two-hour journey to the specialty vet hospital, where our 13-year-old paralysed chiweenie waited to be picked up. Housebound with Covid, I waited impatiently for him to return with the love of my life.

Tom knew that Maya had always been my soulmate. She had been at my side since I was 19 and going to college in Greenwich Village. She gently snorted in my bag as I snuck past security into my film class, where a treat from my professor awaited her. Bouncy and bright, Maya romped through the city with me, often drawing adoration from passersby for her cuteness.

We were inseparable. I would wake to the surge of traffic or the rumble of street construction below, Maya nuzzled into my dark hair. Up we went to the coffee shop’s takeout window, where, surprise, surprise, more treats were ready for her taking. On the subway, to friends’ houses, on road trips across state lines, and on flights home to sunny, smoggy Los Angeles, Maya came along every step of the way.

During Hurricane Sandy, it was Maya and me against the world. No power, no running water. Maya and I traipsed along the Westside Highway at twilight, a Blessed Virgin Mary candle ablaze as a torch, walking past what felt like a post-apocalyptic downtown.

Maya even moved across the pond with me to London when I turned 30 – a reset after a five-year relationship abruptly ended.

She first moved in with my mum, who FaceTimed me at least four times a day while I spent the longest three months of my life waiting for her to arrive.

When she finally did, I felt whole, like I could exhale and lean into my new London chapter.

A few months later, Maya, almost 12, lost mobility in her back legs. I placed her in a leather duffel bag (unzipped, of course), threw in some blankets and rushed into the November night to the same specialty vet hospital, which would become our refuge for the next........

© HuffPost