“Grief is love with nowhere to go.” – Jamie Anderson

My Interpretation: He was my landing place. The one who held the weight with me. & now I carry it alone, his love still here, but nowhere to rest. That is what this is. That is what makes it unbearable.

The Loss of My Left Wing

They say dogs do not live long enough because they already know how to love.
But no one warned me what it would feel like to lose the one who knew how to love me best.

Koby did not just guard the door.
He guarded me.
He guarded the unraveling.
He stayed when I did not want to.
He laid across my chest like sandbags during the storms I never named.
That dog loved me in the language of stillness –
knew the weight of my silence better than most men ever knew the sound of my voice.

& the day he left – it gutted me.

I still have not picked up his ashes from the vet.
I try. I do.
But every time I get in the car, I pass the building.
I cannot walk in.
Because if I do, it makes it real.
It makes it final.
It feels like I failed him – leaving him there after he took his last breath.
& now I just keep going, like I am supposed to know how.

But I do not. I cannot.
It has been three weeks, & I still cannot form a routine.
Everything in me feels off.
Like I am out of orbit.

People say pets are just that… pets.
But Koby was a part of me.
There was never a need to explain anything to him – he just knew.
Just like I knew with him.
I knew when he needed food, or comfort, or space.
We did not speak in words. We never had to.

He was my left wing.
The side that steadied me when I leaned too far into loss.
& now – without him –
I walk crooked.

I will admit that I keep looking for him.
The click of nails on the floor.
The heavy sigh by my feet.
The howling when I say “Talk Shit” – but now am only greeted with silence…
Even my other dog looks for him.
Watches the door. Pauses at sounds that do not lead anywhere.
Wailing if I try to leave him…
We are both grieving. Quietly. Loudly. Together.

& I do not know when this gets better.
But right now, I am not okay.
Not even close.

There is a reason they call them soul dogs.
Because pieces of me left with him,
& the sky still feels as if it is folding in.
My tether to humanity, my purest form of gratitude in form of a German Shepherd, my Left Wing.  

Xoxo ♡