I regretted Kira before we got out of the humane society. She wasn't the easy dog. She came sick and skinny and not trusting. Months later, I understand what staying with a hard thing actually looks like — and what it gives back.

At 18, I chose a college close to New York but not in it — close enough to feel safe, far enough to miss everything I wanted. It was the first of many quiet compromises that shaped the next 40 years.

She was my familiar. Not just a pet. She was the one constant through years of upheaval—the creature who needed me most, who saw something in me I couldn't always see in myself. Three days after she left, I'm still looking for her in every room.

Four hours and the house already feels wrong. She was the most steady, loyal presence in my life. She rescued me as much as I rescued her. And now I don't know how to breathe in a world she's not in.

I was 17 when I told my mother I didn't want her life. She didn't flinch. Twenty years after her death, I understand what she was actually doing at that ironing board. She wasn't disappearing. She was building everything.

Birthdays and anniversaries put me in a funk. I'm always missing someone. Today is my parents' 63rd wedding anniversary — and I'm thinking about the roots I come from, the ones I'm still trying to make sense of.