When Love Ends Too Soon

When Love Ends Too Soon

Caramel was almost ten. A dog with a soft name & a steady presence. Then knee cancer. Then a bone that broke simply because it could not hold on anymore. The kind of ending that feels cruel, unfair, rushed, even when you know it was the kindest choice left.

Losing a pet is a specific kind of pain. It is quiet but constant. It lives in routines. In empty bowls. In the sound that never comes back when you open the door.

People will say things like at least you gave them a good life. They mean well. But grief does not shrink just because love was strong. Sometimes it grows because of it.

My mom once said losing a pet can feel harder than losing a parent. That shocks people. But anyone who has truly loved an animal understands it instantly.

Pets are there for the worst days. The dissociation days. The depression days. The days where speaking feels impossible. They do not ask for explanations. They do not need you to perform wellness. They just stay.

When you live with mental illness, that kind of presence becomes a lifeline. Animals anchor us to time. To routine. To the physical world. Feeding them gets you out of bed. Walking them gets you outside. Their need for you can quietly keep you alive.

So when they are gone, it is not just grief. It is destabilization. It is the loss of a regulator. A witness. A constant.

Grief does not follow rules. It does not care that Caramel was a dog. It only knows that someone essential is missing.

There is no strength in minimizing that.

If you are still here after losing them, it does not mean you are fine. It means you are surviving something heavy. If you are still here, there is still hope. Even if it feels thin. Even if it feels borrowed.

Caramel mattered. This grief makes sense.