No-Dante (English**)

Dante has died. My little one died. It happened this weekend, though the stroke happened a week earlier. A week during which she could not move, neither could she control her feces and urination. My little Dante once, already an old lady.



In general, it does not feel completely real, it is only when I read the word, when I see it there, in front of me, on the paper, on the computer. Then it is undeniable. Someone opens a door and behind it all is emptiness and abysm. It is the hole that Dante leaves behind, those coordinates no longer exist in the world and do not refer to anything anymore. And then I see that it is irreversible, more irreversible and resounding than anything else in the world.






I am not sure how many different memories of my little one have come to me so far. The majority of them beautiful ones. Impulses have come to me as well: to tell her nice things, to hug her, to feel the excitement of coming home and seeing her there, anticipating her reaction. She was my girl.
And all that, in one fell swoop, got erased, classified in the file of impossibilities, bolted and barred shut.



When my mother started talking to me about Dante, on the phone, I thought she was just scared about something, and that that was the reason why she was calling me, so I could calm her down if necessary; and that it would be something that would prepare her for the fateful moment. For the worst, one day. But the worst had already arrived and it was me that was ill prepared. My little Dante. As I was listening to the details, all paths were leading me to the same destination: the worst. And the worst arrived: “and yesterday we had to euthanize her, there was no other option”. So Dante was no anymore, so in three weeks, when I arrive home, she won’t be there.
Dante does not exist.



For a week, my worried mother concealed the facts to me, because I was so far... so far away from my little Dante...
And I wanted to be with her. I would want to have taken care of her. To have caressed her, slept by her, kissed her, touched her velvet ears, cleaned up her pee and poop (she was always very careful with that and till the last moment she cried when those “accidents” happened to her), given her water with a syringe and cleaned her saliva, and to have whispered to her that I was there, that I was not going to leave her side. With her till the end, that’s what I would have liked. Giving her little kisses on her nose.



But now the word is written, and it is impossible to negate the emptiness, the inexistence, the no-Dante that the world is now, that it will be, forever after, defined by its lacking; like a picture with a figure cut from it, and this little piece of writing is like the siloutte that the cutting left behind: it makes it impossible to negate the absence and, at the same time, it bears witness to the previous existence, drawing the boundaries of emptiness, tracing the borders of my little one.




**Translation to English revised by Ariel Schindewolf. Any remaining errors are my sole responsibility.