A prayer for Safi

Close to where I work in Tottenham Court Road, in fact next to the M&S is a man who sells the Big Issue. As the months have gone by and I’ve passed him on my way to work – we’ve become friends.  He always had a dog by his side lying on an old piece of cardboard or bit of blanket and the dog was called Safi.  When we spoke, Safi would look up and check he was alright and then gently close her eyelids to go back to sleep and he would tell me about her and their wonderful stories together.

It was a wonderful relationship, she stayed awake at night to look after him and he looked after her during the day.  As a couple they were inseperable.  Never did he have to put her on a lead, they just were a unit.

It used to break my heart to see them out on the street, a tired and old dog and a man who was just a sweetheart and deserved better than what life had given him.

In the last few weeks Safi had been wearing a neck collar, the ones with the funnel front because she had cancer and the Blue Cross were going to operate ….

and then this week – Wednesday in fact when I got into work – I saw my friend and looked for Safi.  She was not there … my friend told me she had been put to sleep two weeks ago because she had cancer and was in pain. She’d died in his arms and then the Blue Cross had taken her away to Cambridge to be cremated.  He had not been able to go with her on the last journey of her life and not had the money to give his companion the burial he’d wanted too.

I walked the rest of the way to work in tears ranting against the unfairness of the world and how terribly cruel it is.

She was a loyal friend to a man who had few friends, who looked after him in the dark when we are all tucked up in bed and now he was on his own.

It’s hardly a consolation but a little group of us are organising a whip round for him to buy a plaque for Safi and for his train fare to Cambridge so he can see where her ashes have been scattered and choose the place for the plaque in the memorial garden and remember his loyal companion and friend …  because I know even though she is not here in body, she certainly is in spirit looking after her friend and making sure he keeps afe.