Some things are more harder to put in words, yet here I am now trying to do so.

I’m really bad at talking about death—completely helpless when it comes to facing it, even. I somehow just freeze up, but maybe by writing, I can process it.

And the push to this, came experiencing the pet loss all over again, but this time, I was the bystander. Witnessing everything from different perspective was at the same time wound opening, going through my own trauma around it, but also in a way healing too, as now I was able to be the support that I would wished for.

My first dog almost left for the ”air force”—to run along the rainbow bridge—before turning a year old. I loved this little one so much aready, my very first own little land shark that I had waited and hoped for my whole life.

I still remember how I spent one specific night when his health took the fisrt time the downhill spiral, watching over his sleep and crying, hoping the vet would make everything right. Hoping I wouldn’t lose him. The fear of it kept me up all night, and that fear made its way to mind but also heart, and during the years, the ache of it reminded about itself every now and then. As he aged, he had more and more health issues, and the fear of loss became the new normal.

My attachment style adapted to that, and I became numb to it, used to it. In a way, I was always fearing the worst, while still hoping for the best. While my dog kept pushing through every step back, as a little fighter he was. Until his very last day, until we both needed to face it, that we can’t keep on fooling the death more longer.

An there I was, In need to face my lifes biggest fear.

I only remember bits and pieces from that time; from my dog’s final days, for a long time I only remembered things directly related to the dog. When you’ve wished for someone for 14 years, and then got to keep them in your life for 14 years, I guess it’s understandable that life feels like it has no purpose, no meaning.

You see, I’ve often wondered why I feel somehow ”emotionally cold” when it comes to my current dog, like I don’t feel such a deep connection.

But then again, my current dog is the complete opposite of her, in so many ways. Especially health-wise; this one has been in the shape of their life the whole time, loves vet visits, and those have mostly just been for routine vaccinations.

The biggest differerence here is, that this connection is missing that fear of loss, which explains why it feels so ”dull,” so to speak. I don’t have to fear for them with my heart in my throat. And for that, I am actually deeply grateful.

Because in the end, this was also what I wished for, when telling Rico about the wishes for his follower.

Maybe I never loved my first dog more. Maybe I was just more afraid of losing him.

And maybe, for the longest time, I mistook that fear for the depth of my love.

Perhaps the greatest gift my first dog left me wasn’t just the love we shared, or even the lessons I learned through losing him.

My biggest fears and losses happened only a few years apart, the biggest one first and with such a crash that it felt like the ground was pulled from under me, and I felt like I almost lost my mind along with it. Even though I had been on the brink of it many times before through my beloved dog’s illnesses, facing the finality of it, the reality setting in, derailed me completely for a moment.

I noticed this same pattern as my grandmother’s death approached. My life’s second biggest fear. Alzheimer’s made it gentler, though—there was time to get used to the idea, as well as along to the fact that it was no longer possible to call and catch up. And the thought that she was still living helped a little, until the day came that she also took her final breath and left this world.

There was time to process it, even though the fear of losing her was tormenting me like hell in the background. But at the same time, that rollercoaster shaped me—I guess that played a part, too.

Life has its ways to working out, and in a way now I’m able to see things finally from a different perspective. New point of view has gotten me wiser, stronger and even more aware of own self.

Perhaps these both losses were together the chance to finally learn how to love without being afraid.

And maybe that’s exactly what I had wished for all along.