730 days.

I recoiled when I typed the number. Seems so large…grief two years later is not knowing what to say. You feel like you’ve said everything, even though there are still so many feelings. “She’s still writing about that dog?” some people must think. The truth is the last year has been a little different. I notice I don’t think about you as compulsively anymore. ‘Growing around the grief’, they say. It makes me angry. It can’t be like that, not with you.

I make a lot of dark jokes. I laugh, sometimes it makes people uncomfortable. I like to think you would laugh, or just not care. I found your nail clippers and refuse to reuse them, or throw them away. Once I found one of your shoe stickers outside on the pavement. I looked at it like it was a fossil I’d unearthed. Your downstairs bed was finally moved, but the upstairs one remains untouched. A layer of dust has settled on the blankets, and I can’t bring myself to clean it off. I don’t want to touch any of it, I don’t want to accidentally remove some of you.

I stopped inviting you into the car when I go places, I guess I just assume you’re always there. There are bunnies still in a shopping bag in the closet and I can’t bring myself to do anything with them. I learned that dogs see blue things better – for this I am happy because it means you saw most of your things. I’m sad because I can’t buy anything blue for Ophelia because it was your color.

People have stopped making references to you. I never will…but they have, and I notice it. I took tomorrow off work to do all of our favorite things and your food man didn’t know why until I made him think about it. These things are ingrained into me and it’s just another Friday to everyone else. July 21, 2021. To me it’s two years since my life ceased as it had existed until that point. I am something else now.

“It’s just a dog,” they might think. “It wasn’t like she lost a real child.” I wish they knew. I wish they knew everything you were to me. No one has ever said these things but someone must think it.

The weight of tomorrow has slowly settled over me the way clouds slowly move in the mountains. One minute you can see every ridge, and the next you’re surrounded by grey. You can see it happening if you really watch, but often we don’t have time. My blog indicates the readability of this post is the worst it could be. I want to tell it to fuck off.

I think of what we will do tomorrow and I’m not sure. Coffee for starters, I think. I’ll get you a pup cup, and I will have to explain why I ordered one to sit on the patio with no dog. Honestly after that I have no idea. I want to honor your memory but I hate doing things we used to do without you. We still have yet to hike, or go back to the big park with the walking track, or swim in a river. All of those things were you, and it feels so wrong to even consider doing them without you.

I started yoga again this week, which also reminds me of you. I’m trying to stop napping every single day and be more mindful. I’m so out of shape, and it’s just another reminder of who I have evolved into without you here to help me.

Please visit my dreams more. I cherish every instance I wake up and realize I got to see you again. It could never be enough.

I love you, and I miss you.