_I Didn’t Want to Let Go—So I Found a Way to Carry Her With Me
The day she died, everything got quiet.
Not just the house — me. My voice, my habits, my energy. It was like my body forgot what to do without her curled up beside me, always within arm’s reach. Even months later, I still pause when I walk past the corner where her bed used to sit. My hands still reach for the treat jar. At night, I still sleep with one leg curled, like I’m saving space for her.
You don’t just lose a pet. You lose a rhythm. A shadow. A heartbeat that matched your own.
🌧️ Grief Feels Like Forgetting How to Breathe
When people hear you’ve lost a pet, they often mean well. They tell you to focus on the good memories or remind you that “she had a great life.” And yes, she did. But that doesn’t make the silence any easier to live with.
Grief doesn’t ask for permission. It arrives uninvited and settles in quietly — in your chest, in your hands, in the tiny pauses between thoughts. One moment you’re fine, the next you’re crying into a blanket that still smells like her.
I later learned there’s a name for this emotional back-and-forth: the Dual Process Model of grief. It describes how we oscillate between confronting loss and learning to live again. That explained so much — how I could cry in the morning and laugh about a silly memory in the afternoon. I wasn’t “moving on” or “stuck.” I am a human being with emotions, swinging between heartbreak and healing, like a pendulum finding its rhythm again.
🧸 I Needed Something to Hold Onto
Letting go wasn’t an option. But holding on looked different now.
I started small — a memory box. Inside: her collar, her tag, a frayed leash, and her favorite toy, missing one ear. Each item carried its own weight, its own small echo of the life we shared.
Later, I commissioned a stuffed animal made in her likeness — same sleepy eyes, same little patch of lighter fur beneath her chin. It sits on my nightstand now. On hard nights, I reach for it. It’s not her, but it’s something tangible — a bridge between memory and touch.
These rituals might seem small, but psychologists say symbolic connections can help people process grief by turning abstract pain into concrete remembrance (American Psychological Association, 2020). It’s a way of saying: “You mattered, and you still do.”
🗣️ Speaking Her Name Keeps Her Close
For a while, I avoided saying her name. It felt like stepping on a bruise. But the more I stayed silent, the further away she felt.
So I started talking about her again. Casually, naturally, as if she’d just stepped out for a walk. I’d mention how she used to nudge my leg every morning until I got out of bed. Or how she’d groan dramatically whenever I paused a walk to check my phone — the canine equivalent of rolling her eyes.
At first, these memories broke me open. Then they began to hold me together. Talking about her transformed grief into gratitude. Each story reminded me that love doesn’t vanish; it just changes shape.
According to the Pet Loss Support Group at the University of California, Davis, maintaining continuing bonds — by speaking to or about your pet — is one of the healthiest ways to integrate grief into everyday life. You don’t stop missing them, but you start missing them with warmth instead of pain.
💞 Doing Something With the Love That Had Nowhere to Go
Grief, I’ve learned, is love with nowhere to land.
After she passed, I felt that love pooling up inside me — heavy, directionless. So I gave some of it away.
I made a donation to the shelter where I first met her. It wasn’t large, but it was enough to imagine another animal getting a warm blanket or a toy because of her. Because of us.
Channeling grief into kindness doesn’t erase the pain — but it transforms it into motion. The Humane Society of the United States calls this “active remembrance”: actions that honor your pet’s legacy by helping other animals. It’s a way to let your love keep doing good in the world.
🧠 Science Helped Me Feel Less Alone
In my search to understand what was happening to me, I read that losing a pet activates many of the same brain regions as losing a human loved one (King & Werner, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 2022). That fact stayed with me.
It meant I wasn’t “too sensitive” or “taking it too hard.” It meant my grief made sense. The body doesn’t distinguish between human and animal bonds when it comes to love and attachment. To your brain and heart, loss is loss.
Knowing that gave me permission to stop minimizing my pain. It gave me space to heal without guilt.
🌙 I Still Say Goodnight to Her
Every night, softly. Sometimes just to the room, sometimes to the stars.
It’s a small ritual, one I never plan to stop. Because it reminds me that love isn’t linear — it doesn’t have an endpoint. She still exists in the quiet moments: in the sunlight that spills onto her old spot, in the warmth that lingers after I laugh about her quirks, in the way I now love other living things more gently because of her.
Maybe that’s what carrying someone really means — not refusing to move forward, but bringing them along in the movement.
🌿 What I’ve Learned About Love, Loss, and Carrying On
If grief is a teacher, she’s a patient one. She doesn’t rush you. She doesn’t scold you for missing too long. She just sits beside you until you remember how to stand again.
I used to think “moving on” meant leaving her behind. Now I know it means carrying her differently — in memories, in stories, in the softness she taught me to live with.
Because she’s not really gone. Not completely.
She shows up in the stillness, in the laughter, in the moments I remember to be kind.
And maybe that’s what love really is — something that outlives its form.
References
American Psychological Association. (2020). Coping with the loss of a pet. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2020/08/pet-loss-grief
King, L., & Werner, K. (2022). Neural correlates of grief and attachment after pet loss: Understanding the biological parallels to human bereavement. Journal of Behavioral Medicine.
Humane Society of the United States. (n.d.). Honoring your pet’s memory. Retrieved from https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/honoring-your-pet
Edit by: Matthew