Loss and grief have been quiet companions in my life for a long time.
I know the big losses. I’ve buried my parents. All of my aunts and uncles. A couple of cousins. And as the years pass, a growing number of friends. Those losses shape you, they leave a mark, but somehow they fit into a story the world understands. There are words for them. Rituals. Cards. Casseroles.
The losses that have taken me to my knees, though, were the animals.
Two Corgis. Two Greyhounds. And a few years ago, Tucker, a little PomaPoo I adopted under palliative care. I was told I might get a few weeks with him. He stayed a year and a few weeks. Not because of medicine, but because of love. Because safety, consistency, and affection matter, even when the clock is already ticking.
We let these fur babies into our lives knowing the deal. We know, intellectually, that their lives are shorter. We sign up anyway. We love them fully anyway. And then we’re surprised by how deeply it hurts when they leave.
They become our world because we are their world.
There is something uniquely devastating about that kind of loss. No complicated history. No unfinished arguments. Just presence, routine, companionship, and love. When that disappears, the silence can be crushing.
And yes, even for a big, supposedly tough guy, losing a furry friend can break your heart wide open.
What matters to me, looking back, is this: despite how crushing those losses were, I never picked up a drink. Not once. Grief didn’t push me back into numbing or escaping. If anything, it reinforced something important, that feeling pain does not mean I’m failing. It means I’m human. It means I loved.
Grief isn’t something to fix. It’s something to move through, at your own pace, in your own way. Sometimes it shows up as tears. Sometimes as heaviness in the chest. Sometimes as missing a familiar sound in the house. Sometimes it just sits beside you quietly.
If today feels heavy, that doesn’t mean you’re doing healing wrong. It means you’re allowing yourself to feel what’s real. And that, quietly, is an act of strength.
You don’t have to explain your grief. You don’t have to rank it. You don’t have to “be over it” by any timeline.
Love leaves an imprint. Grief is the echo of that love.
And if you’re carrying loss today, whether it’s a person, an animal, or something harder to name, you’re not weak for feeling it. You’re honouring what mattered.
Sometimes, that’s enough for one day.
