First Child

As time flies, memories fade. Pictures and videos of them get scattered in different places and formats. How do you bring them all together? How do you craft them into a beautifully designed coffee book?

Gita was scared of dogs. When she got married in 2004 her husband gifted her with a pair of German Shepherd pups.

By the time the hyperactive one year olds began galloping around Gita was wearing heavy boots inside the house. Her fear of getting trampled added to her levels of anxiety.

In the tropical country Gita grew up, dogs lived in kennels, outside the house. They were considered as animals, guard dogs, and let out mostly at night.

After doing her post-graduation in Des Moines she married and settled down in Houston, Texas. Though she lived in an upscale neighbourhood in a historic house, it was considered safer to have dogs.

On their first wedding anniversary Arun, her husband, surprised her with two little, playful, sibling pups.

Gita did not know how to respond, but acted suitably surprised. The subject of a dog had never come up before.

“Shouldn’t we get a kennel for them,” she asked Arun.

“Kennels?” Arun’s face lit up with a smile.

“For the dogs.”

“They are babies. Besides kennels are where you board the dogs when you want to go on a vacation.”

Soon Gita started feeding the pups, taking them for walks, scooping the poop, and getting a specialist to train them to recognize and tackle intruders.

Gita was not working at the time and performed the duties as part of her household chores. She constantly wore boots in the house. The pups began to grow. Their tails upset everything at coffee table height.

In a couple of years she realized her levels of anxiety had considerably gone down. The dogs had a calming effect on her. In the evenings, back from work, she enjoyed her filter coffee in the large backyard, watching the antics of Nandi and Gaia.

They have become inseparable. The dogs followed her all around the house. Gita dreaded leaving them in the kennel. She always weighed the decisions of being with the dogs with her appetite for travelling to culinary destinations.

The passing

In the Spring of 2023, Gita travelled to India for a couple of weeks to visit her parents. Her father was having a major surgery and she timed her dates to be with him for the recovery.

Five days before returning to Houston, Arun called her with the bad news. Nandi had cancer, it has spread. He had waited for her dad’s surgery to get over before breaking the news to her.

Gita took the next flight home and went directly to the pet hospital. On 6 March, Nandi passed on, her head in Gita’s lap.

This was Gita’s first experience with death. The separation of someone she considered her first child.

Within a few months, on 19 January, Gaia followed Nandi.

Over time, she realized that the memories she held so dear were beginning to get hazy.

Gita began collecting their memories … stories, images, and videos.

The memory book she ordered, was a tribute to the two lives that made a huge difference in her life.

Capture the stories, sounds, and visuals. Craft a memory book in print and digital formats. Let’s connect and start the journey.