Hello, grief.

Mourning the loss of a pet.

TW: Loss of pet. 

I recently wrote a post about clinging to summer with an iron grip. Not ready for that cut in the air, the warm kick of cinnamon, the crinkling sound of slipping my arms into a barn jacket. 

I feel some degree of resistance to autumn every year. But for some reason, this time, I really couldn’t embrace the shift. And I didn’t know why. 

But now I do. 

A couple weeks ago, my sweet four-year-old black lab, Camellia, was diagnosed with an impossibly rare, and terminal, kidney disease. We were told she’d have weeks to months, and even that time frame felt like someone was telling me to take bread out of the oven after three minutes (for the non-bakers out there, bread usually bakes for 30 minutes). 

She died a week later, letting us know unwaveringly that it was time. 

The Audrey Hepburn of dogs.

It turns out, this end of summer that I was dreading was also the end of something much greater: a life that felt as infinite as the star-specked carpet in the sky. A life that will not come back around when the calendar flips to June.

I spent the last seven days of her life trying to memorize her. Bottle up her scent in my brain like perfume (though she smelled less like Chanel and more like Fritos). Train my fingers on the velvety touch of her floppy, obsidian ears. Rehearse “gimme a kiss” like we were preparing for a canine talent show.

I even wrote down every single one of her quirks, worried to rely on my memory that has forgotten many details of my other dogs. 

Losing this one-in-a-lifetime dog at any age would have shaken me to my core. Losing her at four has carved the core right out. 

I should say, this isn’t meant to be a grief contest. If you lost your pet after a long life, my heart aches for you just the same. I’ve lost dogs at 13, 10, and nine, each one its own kind of pain. But this one — this one really bleeds. 

My emotions check the boxes of grief like a grocery list — attempting to calculate how this could have happened, knowing there is no equation that shakes out. Longing for the things she’d do that I’ll never see her do again. Anger at the cruelty of cutting her life short, like a film projector liquifying a roll halfway through the movie. Slamming shut the idea of another dog, because how could anyone compare to her? 

I think anyone who loses a pet grapples with how much grief to feel. We all know we’re allowed to feel something. But how much is too much? Whether it’s the state of the world at large or a tragedy in your hometown, you can find a loss worse than you own.

Life is a deck of cards shuffled with grief. And the hand dealing isn’t your own.

It’s grounding to have that perspective, to recognize that you are not the only one suffering. But grief is still grief. It’s not “just” something. It’s not “just” a dog, or a cat, or a rabbit.

Grief has no prerequisites. No time limit. No gutter guards down that slippery alley. You can’t forecast its swelly, erratic path the way you can predict a rainstorm (and even then, meteorologists don’t get paid for accuracy). 

This particular grief has taught me that mourning and joy are two sides of the same coin. In her last week, every time I looked into her brown eyes I was capsizing in a sea of sorrowful blue. But I pulled myself up for air every time, finding tendrils of sunshine peeking through in prismatic patterns. Letting her do what she did best — make me happy. She wouldn’t want to be responsible for any other emotion. 

I put the grief on hold, knowing it would be on speed dial the second I needed it. I let a smile find me, even as she stopped picking up a toy and tackling me every time I came in the door (Camellia, I was just outside!). Even as her wet-nosed investigations of every item that entered the house dried up. Even as rogue crumbs sat on the rug, their predator never pouncing.

Even as her tail, once wagging with such vigor that it rocked her entire body, could barely flutter at our presence. 

That last week broke my heart. But it also filled it. I knew a tsunami of grief was on its way. I tried not let it taint her last moments before it crashed. 

Right now, the pain feels like pulling a splinter out of my palm. Sometimes it’s mixed with omniscient gratitude, other times its percolating beneath boiling anger.

I don’t think I’ll ever “move on.” I’ll just move forward. I’ll pepper in silly ways to remember her — my boyfriend and I have already started making a *pfft* sound to imitate the snort she’d make when she had a toy in her mouth. I’ll watch and rewatch videos of her goofy mannerisms and bloom with the heat of my love for her, even as tears leave sticky salt on my cheeks (which she would love to lick, by the way).

And I know she’ll be trotting alongside me, tip-tapping on the coarse pavement, always one step ahead.