Every child in the world has had a pet –or so I think– for it is almost an unwritten law of childhood: a dog that follows you, a cat that elegantly ignores you, a little parrot that repeats your name at the wrong moment, a little goldfish that swims in circles in its glass universe. Perhaps a toy snake that frightened the aunts, or a hamster that ran without getting anywhere... But my early childhood was not spent in a city, but in the countryside, where animals are more than just pets. And there, my companion was neither a dog nor a cat, but a little piglet. Small, pink, with a wet snout that was always seeking out my hands. I would follow him around the pen, speak to him in a language only we understood, and he would reply with soft grunts, as if he too had stories to tell. It was pure mischief: him wallowing in the mud, me trying to clean him with warm water, knowing that the next day it would all start again. That was the magic: the endless cycle of care and dirt, of love that gets your hands dirty.

Then came the move to Caracas, and with it, a change of scenery and of company. The little pig was left behind in my memories, and in its place came a dog. I’m not quite sure what breed it was; perhaps a Canela, or something similar. It had golden fur and sweet eyes, and an energy that filled the house with barking and running about. In the city, his mischief took on a different flavour: chewing a shoe, hiding a ball under the sofa, waiting patiently to have his tummy scratched. It was a different kind of love, more urban, more restrained, but just as genuine. I learnt that pets are more than just animals; they are silent witnesses to our days, accomplices to our secrets, mirrors of our capacity to care. Today I understand that they are part of the family.

But life, at times, takes turns that hurt. My daughter Sofía arrived with a smile that lit up everything, and with an immense love for nature. She watched the birds, gazed tenderly at the leaves, and spoke to the flowers. However, her condition —that leukaemia she had suffered from since she was so young— imposed a necessary silence upon us, for we could not have live pets in the house. The risk of infection, the burden of extra care, the fragility of her immune system, turned what for others was a simple joy into a forbidden possibility. So her pets were of a different kind, inanimate ones, like soft toys; teddy bears, fabric rabbits, cotton dogs, all wrapped in cellophane. She would arrange them around her bed, tell them about her days, and talk to them about her fears. For Sofía, the magic of a pet lived in her imagination. They didn’t make a mess, they didn’t need vaccinations, they couldn’t make her ill. They were just there, still, eternal, listening…

Today, as I think back on the pets of my childhood, thanks to the Silver Bloggers initiative. In my memories, I see the little pig from the countryside, who taught me that love sometimes smells of damp earth. I see the dog from Caracas, who showed me that loyalty knows no breed. And I see Sofia’s soft toys, wrapped in their clear cellophane –I still have a few– which reminded me that sometimes the deepest love is cloaked in silence and absence. Sofia left us at the age of eleven, but her soft toys are still there; they’re part of the family. I still believe that every child deserves a pet. Ah, my son Matthew is more of an arachnid.

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