The Weight of Her Absence

She’s been gone four hours.

Four hours and the house already feels wrong. Her bed is empty. Her water bowl is still half full. I keep thinking I hear her sigh in the next room.

This morning I fed her chicken by hand. I carried her outside. I told her—again and again—how much I loved her. She was tired. She was ready. And I was not.

I don’t know how to do this part. I don’t know how to breathe in a world she’s not in. For nearly fifteen years, she’s been the most steady, loyal, intuitive presence in my life. She was my girl. My heart. My witness.

I bought this house so I could get a dog. I didn’t know, then, that what I really needed was someone to love. Someone to care for. Someone who would reflect back to me the best parts of who I am. She gave me that.

She rescued me as much as I rescued her.

Tasha wasn’t just a pet. She was one of two creatures in this world who truly relied on me—and truly loved me. She stayed when everything else fell apart. And in being hers, I remembered I was someone who could love like that. Care like that. Show up like that.

She gave my life shape and meaning. And now, without her, I feel hollowed out.

There will be time to tell her story. To remember her bark-talk, her side-eye, her insistence on chicken and cheese. To write about her stubbornness and gentleness and joy.

But today?

Today there’s just silence where she used to be.