No one Prepared Me for How it Feels to Lose My Four-Legged Best Friend

To grow up with a dog is to experience an unnamed love. And to lose the dog that you grew up with is to experience an unnamed grief.

They are intangible experiences that feel as though they transcend time and space. It's a friendship, a mutual bond of protection, and it is the closest thing to unconditional love many of us will ever know.

My dog's name was Midnight. She came into my life when I was eight years old and from that day on, home felt whole.

I remember her tiny black frame coming out of a small cage to greet me for the very first time. She was a tail-wagging-mixed-breed terrier with fur so dark you weren't quite sure if she was a puppy or a squirrel.

She was happy and curious and when she was still enough to show you those eyes under all of that moving fluff, you could see that they held a soul that was almost human.

It sometimes felt like she was hand-plucked from the sky and dropped into my lap, as if the stars knew I needed her tireless spirit of joy on days that felt long and lonely.

She softened the uphill battle of childhood into adolescence and then into adulthood with the promise of a love that would always be waiting for me when I got home.

From her puppyhood to her old age, my favorite thing to do was to sit or lay or crouch next to her on the floor, to just to be a witness in her world.

I was always trying to understand what she saw and how she saw it. She made people happy, just by existing. She had eyes that spoke words in our language. She sweetened the bitter. She healed broken hearts.

She became deeply embedded in our family. Eventually, she was adopted into my Dad's heart, who kept her at arm's length for as long as he could.

"A real dog is a big dog," he said when we got her.

He would later eat his words.

The facade of a large Italian man who talks louder than the average person and has a serious, analytical outward disposition immediately falls to pieces when you see the happy little dog skipping by his side, a pink bandanna around her neck.

He got her groomed and dressed her up. He cooked chicken on the grill for her and cut it up into tiny pieces to mix it with her food. He chased her around the house and gave her nicknames.

He began taking her into his office every day. As a wealth manager, she broke the ice with clients and helped them (and him) relax.

I'd laugh when I would see him open the door for her, suit and tie, briefcase in hand, looking like he stepped out of The Wolf of Wall Street as this 8-pound teddy bear waltzed into his work space before him.

She touched every person who she came into contact with and allowed them to be folded into their kindness.

As I grew up, she did too. And as I got older, I became cognizant of death and loss and knew that getting the beautiful gift of loving her would one day inevitably result in the stark reality of losing her.

I wished many times while she slept and snored next to me that she could live forever and ever by my side. But I knew that one day there would be a world I lived in that she didn't.

When that day came, I was miles away, living my life in New York City while my Dad took care of her in her last years.

The last time I'd seen her was a couple of weeks before.

Her spirit was weak and wan, she couldn't see and the life in her eyes had faded. She was holding on, but I could tell that after fifteen years, she was tired. And I knew that she was ready.

It felt like she had waited just long enough for me to make one final trip home before leaving the world.

I laid with her on the floor for the last time, wrapping her in a towel after a bath and holding her close.

On March 19, 2023, I woke up with a deep sadness and fatigue in my body. The entire day, it felt like I was fighting off a sickness. The sun was shining bright that day, but I couldn't shake the feeling. All I wanted to was curl up in bed and quell this emptiness that had seem to come out of nowhere. I didn't think much of it.

I went to bed early that night. Around 11 P.M., I awoke from a hazy sleep and felt a pang in my stomach and an overwhelming sunken feeling that ached in my whole being.

When I checked my phone in the morning, I learned that Midnight had left the world. Around 11 P.M., she died in my Dad's arms. And of all places—at his office.

The sadness and fatigue suddenly made sense.

I knew that somehow, on March 19, beyond time and space, I felt a part of me leaving this world.

Upon receiving the news, I didn't cry, I didn't scream, I didn't mourn like I thought I would. Not for a few days at least.

I went for a walk and felt a large and loud emptiness form in my heart in the space she had occupied for fifteen years.

I suddenly knew what it felt like to live in a world without her in it. It felt emptier. I felt a profound, vast, and vacant space where a feeling of home used to be.

Since she died, that emptiness has lingered. But there is little sadness in her death.

I miss her every day. I miss her in every moment. But I accept the reality that the only way she can live forever is if I continue loving her beyond her life. The love that I hold for her is inevitably also to hold hands with grief.

Today, as I walk through New York City parks and see dogs play and walk and run, I feel waves of happiness and then a longing. I see a glimmer in their eyes and remember my Midnight.

I wonder if I will spend my whole life searching for her in the eyes of every dog I meet. If that is the price of loving her once in this lifetime, I would do it for thousands more.

To grow up with a dog is to experience an unnamed love.

And to lose the dog that you grew up with is to experience an unnamed grief.

Vanessa Fontana is the creator, producer and host of the Figuring Sh!t Out podcast. You can find her on TikTok.

All views expressed are the author's own.

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