I want you to know that the morning I came downstairs without you was the strangest morning of my adult life. The kettle still worked. The radio still worked. The kitchen tiles were cold in the same places. But the small clatter of your nails on the hallway floor — the small sound that had narrated every morning for eleven years — was missing, and the quiet was louder than I knew quiet could be.
I left your bed in the corner for nine days. I am not embarrassed to tell you that. On the tenth day I folded your blanket and put it in the closet and I will admit I did not throw it away.
People said the things people say. Most of it was kind. None of it helped. The thing that helped, eventually, was that one morning the kettle whistled and I noticed that the light through the window was the same light you used to lie in, and I let it be. I let the light be the small piece of you it was always going to be.
I want you to know I see you in everything now. The way the leash hook on the wall is empty. The way I still pause at the back door. The way I almost called your name yesterday when a Lab on the next block barked at the mail truck.
You were a very good dog. I hope wherever you are, the light is good and the floor is warm and someone, sometimes, scratches the spot behind your left ear that always made you close your eyes.
I will love you for as long as I get to love anything.
