Demon was a dog who was 5 hours away from death when I met him and little did I know, he would become my best friend. Pig, aka Demon, your love was never judgmental; if anything, you were as close to home as I've ever been. I've cried on and to you, created laughs and memories with you, slept on you, yelled around you like a lunatic; yet you continued to love me unconditionally, no strings attached. I hope you're up there taking care of your brother for me; he couldn't hold on much longer after you left us, and I understand because I wanted to let go too. Sometimes I wonder if you knew how much you changed my life. I wonder if you knew that when I looked at you, I wasn't just looking at a dog; I was looking at my family, my comfort, my home, and the one soul who never made me feel alone. You came into my life when you needed saving, but I don't think you ever realized that you were the one who saved me. You filled spaces inside of me that I didn't even know were empty. You gave me a reason to smile on days where smiling felt impossible, and you gave me a love that I will spend the rest of my life searching for. I will never forget the morning after you died, my first one alone. I cried and cried, being overcome with sorrow and the hope for it to be a bad dream. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t real, like maybe the world would rewind if I said it enough, but I knew it wasn’t a bad dream. My mind knew that you were gone, but my heart? My heart begged and pleaded for a different truth. My heart still begs. A part of me still waits to hear your paws walking across the floor, your breathing beside me, your loud good morning howls filling the silence. A part of me still expects you to come running around the corner like you always did, like you were just gone for a moment and not forever. It hurts knowing that I have to live in a world where you are only a memory instead of a part of my everyday life. I never knew how loud silence could be until you were gone. I never knew a house could feel so empty even when everything was still exactly where it belonged. Your toys, your bed, your favorite spots- all of the places that carried pieces of you became reminders of what I lost. It feels unfair that the world still holds evidence that you were here, but I can't reach out and touch you anymore. I can see the places where you laid, the places where you waited for me, the places where you made a simple day feel like something worth remembering, but I can't have you back in them. There are so many things I wish I had said while you were still here. I wish I had thanked you for every morning you gave me a reason to get out of bed. I wish I had told you that you saved me just as much as I saved you. Everyone says I rescued you that day, but the truth is you rescued me too. You gave my life a kind of love that I didn't know existed. You taught me that home isn't always a place; sometimes it's a heartbeat that matches your own. I wish I had known that the little moments would become the moments I would miss the most. I wish I had taken more time to memorize you, to memorize the way you looked at me, the way you loved me, the way you somehow knew when I needed you without me saying a word. I wish I had hugged you longer, held onto you tighter, and realized that I was living in moments I would someday beg to have back. I hate that my last memories with you are now the ones I replay over and over again, searching for something I missed, something I could have done differently, something that could have changed the ending. I find myself wishing I could go back to the moments I didn't know were precious yet. I would slow everything down. I would hold onto every second. I would notice every little thing—the way you looked at me, the way you rested, the sound of your breathing, the feeling of having you close. I would have treated every ordinary moment like the miracle it was. The hardest part isn't that you died. The hardest part is that life kept moving afterward. The sun still rose. People still laughed. The seasons continued changing as if nothing had happened, while my world stood perfectly still. I wanted the universe to stop with me. I wanted someone to tell the wind not to blow and the birds not to sing because my best friend wasn't here to hear them anymore. But the world kept spinning, and somehow I had to learn how to spin with it while carrying the emptiness you left behind. The world stopped turning the day you died; I felt it. In my heart, in my bones, in every fiber of my being. The sun stopped being warm, the night stopped being so cool, and all of a sudden the birds didn’t wake up with us- me anymore. You became the goodbye that I never practiced saying. The kind that sits heavy in the chest long after the words have been spoken into existence, the kind that changed my life so quietly. Some goodbyes are temporary, a wave, a door closing, a promise to meet again. But you were different; yours carved a silence into my world that no crowded room has ever been able to fill. I still reach for moments I wish I could place back into time, one more laugh. I didn't know it would all become such a close but distant memory. Losing you taught me something painful, love doesn’t end when someone leaves. It changes forms, living inside memories echoing inside of in the quiet parts of my day. In everything I did, I thought to myself, you should be here. The celebrations, early mornings, the laughter and heavy-heartedness. You should be here. Instead, your absence stole that joy, left your bed empty, and ripped my heart out of my chest. On the brightest days, your absence echoes off every wall, and your memory never fails to remind me that you should be here. Who knows, Pig, maybe that's why your leaving hurts so much. I never stopped loving you, and you became my most painful goodbye. I hold grief instead of you, and my arms have never felt so sore. You became my biggest heartbreak, nastiest headache, happiest memory, and you're still, of course, my best friend. I still find myself yearning for your love, your touch, to hear your loud good morning howls, wanting to complain about all of your fur being on me- but it's all gone. I wish it was all a dream, and I could just wake up and you be next to me again. When we were together, it felt like I was floating, high on a love that only came from you. I always catch myself thinking about you and all the things that we never got the chance to do. I wish and pray more than anything that we could have found a way to stay together instead of becoming another painful memory. I'm forever blessed and grateful that God allowed you to let me love you and cherish you for all of the time we spent together, as I wouldn't trade it for the world. You were my once-in-a-lifetime soul, my greatest blessing disguised as a rescue, my home in a world that often didn't feel like one. I hope that one day, when my own story comes to an end, you'll be there waiting for me the way you always waited at the door. I hope I'll hear your familiar howl before I even see you. I hope you'll come running toward me without hesitation, and I hope time won't exist anymore. No more goodbyes. No more heartbreak. No more counting the years we spent apart. Just you and me, together again, exactly as we were always meant to be. And until the day I find you again, I will keep looking up at the stars, wondering which one shines a little brighter because you're there, watching over me the same way I still watch over every memory we made together. I begged the Heavens, the Gods, and even the stars for more time with you, and yet they took you anyways. They left me guessing where you could have gone. They left me wondering which star is you. I sometimes wonder why they heard my cries and took you away. I wonder why they saw my tears and took you anyway. I wonder why they chose to take you away from me. Sometimes I wonder what it felt like for you when you left. I hope you weren't scared. I hope you felt how loved you were. I hope you felt my heart holding onto yours even when I couldn't keep you here. I hope you knew that every single second I had with you mattered. I hope somewhere beyond this life, you know that there was someone here who would have done anything to give you one more day. Maybe I will never understand why I was given such a beautiful love only to have it taken away from me. Maybe some souls are too special to stay forever, but that doesn't make losing them hurt any less. I would choose you in every lifetime, every universe, and every version of my life where I was lucky enough to know you. I would choose every single moment, even knowing how much it would hurt to lose you, because loving you was worth every second of heartbreak. I don't write this to reopen old wounds, only to admit that a piece of me will always wonder what our story could have looked like if you were here with me today. How terrible it is to love something that death can touch. But how beautiful it is to have loved something so deeply that even death could never take away what you gave me. You left behind more than memories; you left behind a piece of your heart inside mine. You left pawprints that time will never erase. You were my once-in-a-lifetime love, my greatest blessing, my home, and my best friend. Until I see you again, Pig, please know that every day I carry you with me. You are loved in every tear I cry, every memory I hold, and every moment I wish you were still here. I hope wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you know that I never stopped loving you, and I never will. Always and forever, my sweet baby.

-mom