Nobody ever talks about how you have to figure out who you are without your dog.
Not just how to grieve them. How to rebuild yourself after they are gone. How to fill a space that was not just physical but emotional and daily and constant. That is the part nobody prepares you for.
Peppa was the closest friend I ever had. I sleep with a stuffed Peppa every night because I miss her sleeping in her bed by my head. That is where she was. That is where she belonged. And that space has never stopped feeling empty.
Pet grief is one of the most underestimated kinds of loss there is. People who have never felt it do not understand it and honestly they never will. That is not a criticism. It is just the truth. You cannot explain to someone what it means to lose an animal who loved you without condition, without agenda, without the complications that come with every human relationship. Your dog does not have bad days that affect how they feel about you. Your dog does not hold things back. What they give you is everything they have, every single day, without hesitation.
No human being is capable of that. Not consistently. Not the way a dog is.
I remember watching a movie years ago, and there was a moment where someone warns the main character that when you get that attached to a dog, losing them is going to break you in ways you cannot imagine. I remembered that scene for years. I thought about it when Peppa was still here. I knew it was coming eventually and I knew it would break me.
Still, I was not ready.
Losing her devastated me in ways I still carry. To this day, to this very day, I have not fully put it back together. Nothing prepares you for losing something that pure. Something that true. You think you understand love until a dog shows you what it actually looks like and then you spend the rest of your life measuring everything else against that standard.
Miss you every day, little monster.
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