There are losses that arrive with a goodbye, and there are others that arrive as silence. Losing my son was a loss with no goodbye, yet he “shows” up on my hardest days – in music, or in a thunderstorm, alive and loud, totally him.
A loss with no good bye can be especially hard to understand.
It brings an odd kind of grief wave, the kind that hits when walking the dogs and the tears pour down your face like a waterfall that simply can’t dry up.
Silence is a ghost with no goodbye. There is no clean ending to hold onto, only questions that circle back when the house becomes quiet, making it impossible to find peace.
And grief is strange that way.
Coffee becomes a comfort. Walks with the dogs provide the rhythm that holds me together. But this time, it is Cocobean pulling me along and Apollo teaching me to be curious about the fall leaves swirling around us as he races to catch them. He stops when he hears me bubbling with laughter and sees me wiping the tears that suddenly start falling. Trying to make sense of life.
Maybe it is accepting that daring to love something that didn’t have four paws was brave.
Maybe it’s understanding that trust, once shaken, needs time — and the love of four paws – to believe again.
So for now, I am here, lost in thought, wondering how the music that carried me there is silent.
In the sound of paws beside me.
Maybe today it is enough to quietly remember how to breathe again and learn to feel joy.
Softly. One paw at a time. 
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