From the Taylor family. (Adorable Porsche)

The seven stages of grief do not come in order. They do not line up neatly or wait their turn. They circle. They overlap. They return quietly when you think they’ve already passed. Some days, they all arrive at once, and I carry them together.

I look for you in everything I do. Not deliberately, it just happens. In the way my body still expects yours to be nearby. In the spaces you used to fill so completely, without ever trying.

Every small adjustment feels loud now.Moving through the house means learning new habits, habits that exist only because you no longer do. You won’t see them. You won’t tilt your head or wag your tail as if my smallest decisions mattered simply because I made them.

Sometimes I still hear you before sleep takes me. The quiet lick of your lips, the soft rhythm of it, the sound that always came right before rest. Or the long sigh you’d let out, deep and dramatic, as if the day had asked too much of you.

I hear your claws on the tiled floor even when the house is perfectly still. I swear I hear your breathing,  steady, familiar, the sound that once meant everything was okay.

You came into my life when I was nine years old. I’m almost twenty-one now. At nine, time feels endless, where you assume the people, and dogs, you love will always be there. And from that moment on, you were.

You didn’t announce it.
You didn’t need to.
You simply existed beside me, watching every version of who I became unfold.
You were there for the awkward years, the growing pains, the quiet heartbreaks I didn’t yet know how to name.
You were there for the happy days too, the loud ones, the small ones, the ones that didn’t seem important at the time but now glow softly in memory.
You grew up alongside me, not asking to be part of my life, just choosing it.
You moved with an elegance that always surprised me.
Like a little show dog, even when no one was watching.
Polite. Graceful.
Carrying yourself with a quiet confidence that made it impossible not to notice you.
Watching you walk, or run , felt like watching something gentle and perfect. There was a softness in the way you existed, a calm dignity that matched your heart.
You didn’t rush through the world.
You moved through it as if you trusted it.
You were constant.
A presence so steady I didn’t always realise how much I leaned on it until it was gone.

You were loyal without question.
Comfort without words.
A reassurance that didn’t need explaining.
You were there through the biggest changes of my life.
Still there when I grew older, when my world widened, when I met my boyfriend four years ago and you accepted him as if he had always belonged too.

You fit into every version of my life effortlessly. As if the world had simply been rearranging itself around you all along.

In your final chapter, illness slowed your body, but it never touched who you were to me. That part of you remained untouched.

Untouched by pain.
Untouched by time.

I choose to remember you as you truly were. Running freely, tail high, joyful and whole. Especially at the beach, where you looked most like yourself. Wind in your fur, sand beneath your paws, the ocean watching quietly as you lived.

Losing you felt like losing a part of myself. Not metaphorically. Truly. As if something essential had been lifted out of my chest and taken with you.

The grief I feel is the price of loving you. And if that is the cost, I would pay it again and again, for every year, every walk, every moment, knowing you spent your life feeling loved.

Knowing I was there with you until the very end. When I came home after you were gone, everything reminded me of you. The stains on the couch where you rubbed yourself. Your favourite pink pillow. The gate you waited at, watching me reverse out of the driveway. The side of the house where I’d hear your footsteps at night. You were everywhere. You still are.

I washed your bowl too quickly. Packed away your water. Threw out your brushes without thinking. And then the next day, I wanted to dig through the bin just to find your fur still tangled in the bristles. Just to hold something that proved you had been real.

Grief is strange like that.
One moment, you’re trying to survive it.
The next, you’re begging it to stay.
I find peace when I cook now, but I wish you were there, standing between my feet, watching with hope and patience, certain that something would fall just for you.

In the corner of my eye, I still see you. A flicker of movement. A familiar shape. And when I turn to look, you’re gone. That absence settles heavier the day after. When the world keeps going, and you realise you will never hold me again.

I sleep on your pillow. I revisit videos and photos. I hold your leash. I cuddle your teddy.

Everywhere I look, I find you. I miss the way you’d grab a mouthful of food and eat each bite under the table. I miss moving your bed around the house, placing it carefully in patches of sun. I miss telling you I’d be back soon every time I left. I miss you knocking gently on the door with your head, asking to be let in. I miss the way you took up all the room on the bed for such a small dog. I miss looking forward to coming home to you after uni. I miss falling asleep knowing exactly where you’d be, at the end of the bed, exactly where you belonged.

I dread the day your scent fades from your blanket. The day the drag path you left behind disappears. But you will never leave my heart. That part of you is permanent.

Even now, you still show up. In the smallest ways. In the biggest ones. In signs I ask for desperately — and signs I don’t expect. One day, a dog walked over seven kilometres to meet me. He came straight through the door and sat in front of me.

I knew. I thanked you. Some days feel easier. Some days feel unbearable. Some days, I wake up crying for you. Other days, I feel your love wrapped gently around me, as if you’re reminding me that you are okay.

You were more than a dog.
You were my soul dog.
My best friend.
My constant.

And although you are no longer here, you are still part of me, woven into who I am, into who I became beside you.

I love you, my cutie girl.

Forever.